A Rabbis' Letter

9 September 2004

According to numerous on-line reports, a group of prominent Rabbis in Israel has recently written a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. Unfortunately, I did not manage to locate the full text of the letter itself, and for that reason will have to rely on the following Al-Jazeera, Haaretz and InsraelInsider reports.

According to IsraelInsider,

"Should the IDF fight the enemy, if civilians [on the other side] will be killed, or should the IDF refrain from fighting, and thus endanger our civilians?" the rabbis asked in their letter. In response to the rhetorical question, the rabbis quoted the sage Rabbi Akiva who said that "Our lives come first."

At the first glance it may appear that the letter is essentially calling for military planners not to feel restrained in incurring massive civilian casualties on the enemy side in case these casualties appear to save the lives of Israeli soldiers. This position, according to this analysis by Anthony Gregory, is contrary to the laws and customs of war and provides a justification for state terrorism. Addressing the nuclear strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gregory writes,

People still defend Harry Truman’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on pragmatic grounds. Truman’s defenders say that the bombings saved far more lives than they extinguished. They concede that the bombing was an act of targeting civilians, but insist that it was for the worthy goal of ending the war.

Before even examining the plausibility of this argument, we have to acknowledge the argument’s essence. In effect, to rationalize the targeting of noncombatants as the best method of bringing about a greater good is to make excuses for state terrorism. Terrorism, if it means anything, is a method by which civilians are the targets of violence for the purpose of achieving political goals. Having Imperial Japan surrender, even if a worthy goal, was nevertheless a political one, and the targeting of innocents to achieve that goal was an act of terrorism.

Indeed, it was terrorism on an incredibly large scale. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese were instantaneously wiped off the earth on August 6 and August 9, 1945. Many more died in the following years from the radioactive climate left behind by the bombings.

But this part of the rabbis' argument can be interpreted two-fold,- one can say that they simply are calling on the army not to flinch and to do its job even if, tragic as it is, civilians have to die due to the military activity. They are saying, one might argue, that this is a harsh reality of war, and they are just calling for the army to see it for what it is.

However there are details in this letter that make it difficult to read it quite that way. According to the Al Jazeera report,

In a letter to the Israeli defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, published on Tuesday, the rabbis said killing enemy civilians is "normal" during the time of war and that the Israeli occupation army should never hesitate to kill non-Jewish civilians in order to save Jewish lives.

However, the task of the IDF is not to protect Jews per se but rather to protect Israel and its citizens, 25% of whom are non-Jewish. If for example an IDF unit discovers an enemy mortar crew preparing to fire on a target in Israel the actions expected of them are the same whether the transgressors are Arab, Chinese or Jewish. Nor are all the members of the IDF Jewish as there are Druze, non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and others serving in that force.

The rabbis' letter appears to be a highly racist document. And Jewish racism is a serious problem,- in my opinion, one of the major stumbling blocks on the road to the resolution of the crisis in Israel. The overall racist perception of the issues involved is clearly in line with some Orthodox rabbis' views of the world such as those like Rabbi Dov Lior who certainly appears to classify the humanity strictly along the Jewish vs non-Jewish lines. The Al Jazeera report states,

...a few months ago a prominent rabbi in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arbaa near Hebron issued an edict stating that non-Jewish civilians may be killed to save Jewish lives, soldiers and civilians alike.

The rabbi, Dov Lior, argued that non-Jewish lives had no sanctity, especially during the time of war.

Lior has publicly praised and eulogised Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish settler who in 1994 mowed down 29 Arab worshippers who were praying at Hebron's Ibrahimi Mosque.

Calling Goldstein a "great saint", he said a "thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail".

While little can probably be done to alter the views of an individual extremist, I think the best path for Israel to overcome this problem is by passing a Constitution declaring it a secular democracy of, for and by all of its citizens. That would drastically diminish the influence of such extremist rabbis and allow the society to easier disregard their hateful rhetoric.

Originally published here.

Is Airline Security Their Objective Or Their Cover?

7 March 2005

Check out James Bovard's excellent article on who and how guards us up in the air. Basically, here's the story:

After the pervasive failure of airport security on 9/11, the Air Line Pilots Association sought federal permission for pilots to carry handguns to defeat hijackers. Capt. Steve Luckey, chairman of the association’s flight-security committee, explained, “The only reason we want lethal force in the cockpit is to provide an opportunity to get the aircraft on the ground. We don’t have 911. We can’t pull over.”

The Bush administration rejected the request, preferring instead to rely on jet fighters to shoot down hijacked civilian planes. U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta declared on March 4, 2002, “I don’t feel we should have lethal weapons in the cockpit” — as if airplanes themselves were not among the most deadly lethal weapons.

Congress eventually trumped the administration, passing a law in September 2002 to create a program to train pilots to use firearms to defend their planes. (The Transportation Security Administration — TSA — effectively buried the program with red tape, ensuring that only 48 pilots would be permitted to carry guns in early 2003.)

Former TSA chief John Magaw was the administration’s point person in the fight against permitting pilots to be armed. Magaw announced, “The use of firearms aboard a U.S. aircraft must be limited to those thoroughly trained members of law enforcement.” The federal air-marshal program was touted as a silver bullet against hijacking threats. A White House statement on aviation safety in the wake of 9/11 declared, “The requirements and qualifications of Federal Air Marshals are among the most stringent of any U.S. federal law enforcement agency.”

The TSA was determined to quickly expand the number of marshals from a few hundred to more than six thousand. However, most of the applicants failed the marksmanship test. The TSA solved that problem by dropping the marksmanship test for new applicants — even though the ability to shoot accurately in a plane cabin is widely considered a crucial part of a marshal’s job.

So, a government agency seeks monopoly on a certain task (providing armed guards on commercial flights), fails at it, but instead of fixing the problem rewrites the requirements of the task so as to conceal the issue. Given that the issue is directly related to national security I think it would not be entirely unfair to refer to such behavior as sabotage. And last time I checked sabotage was a criminal offense.

As I have already mentioned, the TSA is quite aggressive in its ways and views intimidation as an important part of its mission. Given how little it seems to care about what is apparently its main objective - the safety of the traveling public - it almost appears that intimidation of the said traveling public may be a goal in itself.

The powers TSA is appropriating seem to go beyond merely harassing airline passengers and extend as far as censoring the airline pilots not in agreement with the "party line".

Brian Darling of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations condemned the TSA’s slant: “They should not be trotting out federal flight-deck officers to say good things about the program while muzzling pilots who are critical of the program.” After grumbling about TSA’s policies on armed pilots spilled into the media, a TSA official sent an e-mail warning to all pilots authorized to carry guns prohibiting them even from communicating to their congressmen about their concerns about the program.

In 2002 Bush bragged that the law creating the TSA “greatly enhanced the protections for America’s passengers and goods.” Rather than making Americans safe from terrorists, the TSA has made them prey to federal agents. There is no reason to expect the agency to turn over a new leaf. And there is no reason to expect a small army of undercover federal agents flying on planes to make Americans safe.

To summarize this, let me just state that I am beyond believing that the TSA is trying to do a job but failing. I believe they are using their task as a pretext for something else. Most likely, it is just a pretext for maintaining a large team of armed federal agents. The governments throughout history have used danger, real or perceived, as an excuse for beefing up the "palace guard" - and they can be viewed as that of sorts. The worst case scenario might be that they are intended as a clandestine internal intelligence service of sorts.

Isolated Lawsuits Are Not Enough

7 August 2004

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantanamo prisoner, has filed a lawsuit against the US Government alleging torture at the hands of his American captors and challenging the constitutionality of the military tribunals for those captured in the "war on terror". The fact that a US Federal Court is now hearing the case is an important step forward for the rule of law, and a significant defeat for the Administration who claimed that it had a right to operate outside the oversight of the legal system in Guantanamo.

However, while I wish Mr Hamdan every bit of luck in obtaining the justice for himself,- that justice being his right to be tried in a court of law with the full protections granted to a defendant as opposed to a military tribunal, as well as getting those who violated his human rights prosecuted,- I believe that such isolated trials are not enough, even if the plaintiffs obtain justice there. I believe we as a society, all of us who adhere to the principles of Constitution regardless of their other beliefs, must state unequivocally that the Administration's attempts to operate outside of the law will not stand. We should write to the public figures, hold demonstrations in the streets, publish our views on the web and in the print media,- in other words, make it heard loud and clear that we demand that all laws of the land as well as international laws our country has ratified be respected by all executive officials.

And if you think that doing so may be tantamount to defending the people possibly involved in terror,- think of it differently. Our laws are not lenient when it comes to terrorism,- our courts can mete out a punishment severe enough to match the crime. Timothy McVeigh was executed for blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Those responsible for the 1993 attack on the WTC are jailed for life. Thus we need not worry about the guilty not being punished. That may happen,- but anyone can be fooled, military authorities included.

And it is your own safety you are protecting by demanding that all executive authorities operate within the scope of the law. It is for your own sake that you are making sure that no government agents will take you away and lock you up in a prison brig as "enemy combatant". I grew up in a country where a whole generation of people lived through years when every family feared a knock on the door at night, where those lead away in the early morning hours often just vanished, leaving their families to tend for themselves as outcasts and pariahs. May no one have to live through that horror and learn what they had learned about what unconstrained government agents with a vengeance can do!

Originally published here.

Benny Morris, An Honest Zionist Historian

Originally published here on 30 August 2004.

The following is an interview with Benny Morris conducted by Ari Shavit (originally published in Haaretz). Benny Morris strikes me as an honest man, and one who is not afraid to confront either the authority, or the entrenched notions.

I think he is utterly wrong in his advocacy of extremism. He describes various war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers during the 1948 War. According to his description, those crimes were the main reason why hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled from their homes,- and he believes that this was a deliberate tactic used to achieve precisely that result. Of war crimes he describes in his works, Morris says,

"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

This sounds like a rerun of the general justification extremists of all stripes have used throughout history.

However, unlike many other students of the matter, Morris seems honest and calls things by their proper name. That is commendable, and I think he is an author and a historian whose works are definitely worth a read.

"Friendly Fire",- By Design

Originally published here on 21 August 2004.

"Friendly fire" is an unfortunate part of pretty much any war. The fog of battle sometimes leads to soldiers firing on fellow soldiers wearing the same uniform. All of the world's militaries work towards developing procedures to avoid such tragic and wasteful mistakes but none have thus far completely succeeded in this quest.

However, according to Body of Secrets, a book authored by the investigative journalist James Bamford, in the 1960's the US military considered attacks on Americans disguised to appear perpetrated by the Cuban forces. The objective: convincing the American public of a necessity of going to war with Cuba. As David Ruppe writes in his ABC News article,

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

That was not merely a thought that popped up in some general's head early in the morning after having a few too many drinks at an Officers' Club the night before. That appears to have been a detailed set of military plans.

America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
...

The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.

Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof … that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."

Fortunately, none of those fiendish ideas were to become reality as they were rejected by the Kennedy administration.

Many Americans think that no one in a position of power in the US would ever even contemplate intentionally harming his fellow Americans in order to create a pretext for promoting their agenda. That assertion appears to have little foundation. Some pretty powerful people within the defense apparatus are clearly documented to have been thinking along the same lines as those at many other times and in many other places throughout history who had intentionally attacked their own populace in order to convince the public of the perceived enemy's aggressive intents.

Canadian Sovereignty And Missile Defense

Originally published here on 28 February 2005.

It's now clear how the Bush administration sees things: Canadian sovereignty exists only at its pleasure. If we do what Washington wants, we retain our sovereignty. If we don't, all bets are off.

This is what U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci clarified last week in his angered response to Paul Martin's announcement that Canada won't join the U.S. missile defence scheme. Cellucci noted that Washington would simply deploy its anti-missile system over Canadian airspace anyway, and expressed puzzlement over Canada's decision to "in effect, give up its sovereignty."

No doubt the Soviets felt similar puzzlement as they rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1968. What's with these crazy Czechs? Don't they get it? All they have to do is co-operate with Moscow and they can retain their "sovereignty."

Writes Linda McQuaig in her article about the diplomatic row between Washington and Ottawa over the issue of the "missile shield". A very apt article, in my opinion. She is probably also right when she says,

...Canada's gutsy refusal to go along was the right move — and one that, incidentally, will win us higher standing in the world.

It is also interesting,- and, may I say, telling,- how many writers, seemingly independently of each other, allude to the Soviet times as they assess the Bush Administration and US foreign policy of today.

Could This Be Part of What Sibel Edmonds Can Not Talk About?

Originally published here on 19 August 2004.

Sibel Edmonds is a former FBI translator who has a lot to say. She would say more if she weren't gagged by the US Department of Justice. Even what she managed to say should arouse your curiosity if truth about 9/11 and our counter-terrorism efforts is of interest to you.

Daniel Hopsicker is a journalist whom I tend to view with some skepticism. Maybe, it is just me, but he seems to have too much of a knack for finding lots and lots of sensational connections,- some of which I tend to think don't amount to much. You can find various publications of his here. However, in this article of his, he may be on to something. In the article Sibel Edmonds is quoted extensively and the content seems to match things Edmonds either does not know, or is not allowed to properly describe.

I have read a number of publications both describing Edmonds and authored by her. I have written about her before (follow these links:1, 2). I believe her to be credible. She may be given to exaggerating facts, she may be bitter, but I do not believe that she is given to either lying or hallucinating. While a lot of facts are still missing, I believe that the story of Sibel Edmonds is an important one, the one to stay on and follow. And, like I said before, what Daniel Hopsicker is describing may indeed be factually correct,- and directly related to Edmonds' disclosures.

That Was One Considerate Unnamed FAA Employee!

Originally published here on 22 September 2004.

On September 11, 2001 a group of FAA employees who were directly involved in handling the hijacked aircraft, or at the very least witnessed the actions of those directly involved with those aircraft, gathered to discuss what they had just been through. That meeting was recorded on an audiotape.

One does not have to be a top-notch detective to realize that such a recording could easily be an invaluable piece of evidence in any subsequent investigation. And anyone whose IQ exceeds that of an absolute imbecile would likely realize that the murder of many hundreds of people would not go uninvestigated.

Yet an FAA employee,- whose identity has to this day not been made public,- destroyed this tape,- allegedly, in a very meticulous and thorough manner, making absolutely sure it would never be heard. I have heard about this occurrence before,- and now I have come across this report in Aviation Magazine. This is a professional publication, so it is more likely to be exact on aviation-specific details than a general-purpose news source. Here is how this report relays the story:

...Each of at least six air traffic controllers and some ten other employees who were on the job at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., during the World Trade Center attacks gathered several hours after to recall their version of events. But that tape, which could have helped determine how the agency responded to clues that four planes had been hijacked, was destroyed before it was ever heard. In fact, officials at the ARTCC were never even told of the tape's existence. According to the report given to the 9/11 Commission by Department of Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead, the audiotape was crushed in the hand of the unnamed FAA employee, then cut into small pieces and tossed into different trash cans around the ARTCC building. Despite the fact that the quality assurance officer had been told to retain all records pertaining to 9/11, he told inspector general investigators he destroyed the tape because he felt making it was contrary to FAA policy, which calls for written statements. He is also quoted to have said the controllers "were not in the correct frame of mind to have properly consented to the taping" because of the stress of the day, and told investigators that faced with a similar situation, he would repeat his actions.

Well, for one thing, let us hope that the above-mentioned anonymous man and the rest of us are never again faced with a situation akin to 9/11. Let us also note the fact that the above-mentioned individual was explicitly told,- by his superiors, I would assume,- to keep all records,- which would include that tape,- but chose to disobey their instructions. His concern for his colleagues' current state of mind is certainly touching, however, that would in no way diminish the reality of the situation,- namely, that he had in all likelihood compromised the 9/11 investigation. I ain't no legal expert,- but don't them smart folks call this sort of thing "obstruction of justice"?

The federal officials appear to have taken a rather light view of what had transpired in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. on that fateful day.

Inspector General Mead told the 9/11 commission the employee showed "poor judgment," and in calling for administrative action, said the employee's attitude about the destruction was "especially troubling." The FAA confirms disciplinary action has been taken against the employee, but will not say what that action was, or identify the employee. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) says the matter could be investigated further.

This appears to be one of those matters on which I am fully with Senator McCain. I would word it stronger,- I'd say this matter MUST be investigated. The public has every right to know this man's name. And if his actions constitute a criminal offense,- which I am more than sure they do,- he must be properly charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Also to be noted is the 9/11 Commission's timidity in approaching the matter. It appears the Commission has never subpoenaed the "unnamed employee", nor do they even know his identity. Does that sound like an aggressive investigation? I guess I am forgetting that the Commission's objective was not to assign blame...

Greg Palast on the Media Freedoms in the US

NOTE: This article was originally published here on 24 September 2004. Republished for the purpose of newsfeed distribution.

Greg Palast has given an interview to Hustler magazine. Most of the interview is dedicated to the issues of press freedoms in the US,- or, rather, how the mainstream media outlets choose to exercise those freedoms.

It is rather curious that this sort of interview was published in Hustler and not, for instance, The New York Times. While I have little interest in pornography, I certainly need to acknowledge Hustler's achievements in presenting controversial opinions which still need to be voiced,- especially in the times when the journalistic mainstream shies away from such opinions.

Greg Palast speaks about potentially scandalous issues which most Americans likely never heard about. The interview is centered around Mr Palast's explosive book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

HUSTLER: What kind of material do you have in the book?
PALAST: How about this for an example: After Daddy Bush left the White House, he went to work for a company called Barrick Gold Corporation in Canada, something you haven't read in the United States. The first thing he does is pick up a big, fat check and stock options from Barrick Gold Corporation for, essentially, selling them the presidential seal and the presidential Rolodex. And he writes letters to dictators like [former president of Indonesia] Suharto, saying, "Give these nice guys gold-mining concessions."
HUSTLER: What is Barrick Gold?
PALAST: It was founded with money from Adnan Khashoggi, the arms dealer. You may remember that Adnan was the bagman in the guns-for-hostages, Iran-Contra scandal. The sheikh got out, then Bush got in. You have to ask yourself a question: What would a Canadian gold-mining company do with a used president? Well, it turns out that before he left office, Daddy Bush put in motion an expedited process for laying claims to gold in the United States. It allowed Barrick Gold Corporation and a couple of other operators to lay claim to the largest gold mines in America. To stake a claim on $10 billion worth of gold ore, Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury less than $10,000.
HUSTLER: I would have gone for that myself. I could have scraped together $10,000.
PALAST: All I can say is that Barrick was very, very grateful for the gold mine. But the public got the shaft, and Daddy Bush got the job. And George W. got the donations. That's the other thing that has been unreported here: People don't realize how much easy squeezy [campaign money] is flowing in. That includes things like parallel spending and soft money and hard money, which, by the way, hasn't ended. You know that our Congress has passed campaign-finance reform, so-called. What they did was eliminate soft money, but they doubled the amount of hard money. It's just Viagra for campaign donations. Our big problem is that we held something closer to an auction than an election in America. A lot of the reason [George W.] Bush raised all that cash-that easy squeezy-is because of his father's business connections. You're never quite sure where the Bush family's bank account ends, and the campaigns and our American policy begin.

While there is a natural connection between political and business activities, one would think that it is a media's natural responsibility to explore and report on such connections. And it Mr Palast's account is correct, then it would appear that the US media is not doing a terribly good job of such reporting. And, given that there are no official attempts to deny his account, it is likely correct.

Mr Palast also asserts that corporate interest stood in the way of preventing 9/11 before it happened, and investigating it afterwards.

HUSTLER: Your book also mentions Bush and intelligence failures prior to September 11, right?
PALAST: CIA and FBI agents told BBC Television, for which I was reporting, that they were ordered not to investigate Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks such as al Qaeda. The FBI agents "accidentally" left a file about the Bin Laden family on the desk of one of my researchers. They called up and said, "Oops, we left our file on your desk by accident. You haven't read it, have you? Well, we'll be back to pick it up in 30 minutes-unless you need 45." The FBI agents handed us material dated September 13, 2001, two days after the attack. It was on that date that the FBI was finally released to go after two members of the Bin Laden family, who they had already identified as being involved with a suspected terrorist organization. But by September 11, they were flown birds.
HUSTLER: What happened to other members of the Bin Laden family living in the U.S. after 9/11?
PALAST: Just after the no-fly restriction was lifted, a private Saudi Arabian jet airlifted the Bin Laden family members out of the country before the FBI could talk to them. Everyone thinks there's just one black sheep in that family, but the FBI agents were telling us at BBC that they think there's a couple of gray sheep, and they had some questions for the family members. There were a lot of people
dead under the rubble at that moment when those people left.
HUSTLER: What had American policy been regarding the Bin Laden family prior to the Bush Administration?
PALAST: Bill Clinton had already put a go-slow on investigations of Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks. Clinton had always taken the position that we can't annoy our dear friends, the Saudis, even if our dear friends happen to be funding terrorists like the al Qaeda network; however, he never actually stood in the way of investigating them, whereas George W., according to FBI and intelligence agents, said, "You can't go there. You may not look. You may not investigate the American Bin Ladens."
HUSTLER: So the FBI and CIA agents were pissed at George W.?
PALAST: They are furious. He blindsided our intelligence agencies. How could a trillion-dollar intelligence operation like the CIA not foresee the most deadly attack on America since Pearl Harbor? The answer is not because Bush knew about September 11 in advance. Rather, they were told not to look because of connections that are political, personal and financial between the Bushes and the Saudis. When these agencies were told not to look, there was a lot not to look at. There was a 1996 meeting between the al Qaeda financial arm, Saudi billionaires and key international arms dealers. There was a discussion about which Saudis would pay how much to al Qaeda. Now if I can find out about it, and the French intelligence had a mole in the meeting, you can bet that our trillion-dollar CIA could find out about it; so why wasn't there follow-up? Why wasn't there action? How about a note to the Saudis saying, "Do us a favor: Stop giving money to people who are killing us."
HUSTLER: What about the Bin Laden and Bush connections to the Carlyle Group?
PALAST: The Bin Ladens were investors in a very private and a very exclusive operation called Carlyle, which is an investment group. Carlyle is one of the biggest private corporations on the planet; so they report to no one, and they're responsible to no one, except their little coterie of owners, which is made up of an ex-president and dictators. Daddy Bush worked for, and still continues to be on a retainer for, the Carlyle Group, representing the company in Saudi Arabia and in Asia. His son, our President, was also put on the board of one of the companies owned by Carlyle, Caterair, and he was paid on the order of $50,000 for them to access his great business acumen. Caterair went under, but they never asked for their money back.
HUSTLER: What about George W.'s oil ventures?
PALAST: He had several oil ventures and could never find oil in Texas, which is almost impossible, as you know. On the other hand, he had a company, Spectrum Seven, which was bought out by another company, Harken Oil. Before that, he had Arbusto, which means shrub. He could never find oil, this guy. But he did find Saudi Arabians who put money into Harken and got him on the board where he was paid consulting fees. Then, despite the fact that the company seems to be going south, a miracle occurred. That is, the Bahraini government insisted on giving Harken Oil a contract to drill in the Persian Gulf. This is a dry-land Texas company suddenly being given an offshore oil lease by a country that had previously been doing business with Amoco. They picked this little, teeny company out of nowhere, which of course has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the guy was the son of the President of the United States.

While there is nothing wrong with being in the oil business, it appears that George W Bush has a strong conflict of interest when it comes to conducting policy in oil-rich regions. And Middle East happens to be just such a region. And it also happens to be where the most crucial world events happen today. The logical summation of these observations must be that due to a conflict of interest, George W Bush ought to be disqualified from formulating the US foreign policy, especially in the capacity of President.

Palast gives a powerful account of the state of journalism in the US today. We must note that the blame lies on all of us, not just the corporate powers, for in a situation where there is no direct state oppression it is still our choice whom to support and finance in the media.

HUSTLER: What has happened to the news media in this country?
PALAST: I vomit every time I see Tom Brokaw.
HUSTLER: And Dan Rather-
PALAST: I feel sick at heart when I see Rather, because he's actually a journalist. He came on my program, Newsnight [in England] and said, "I can't report the news. I'm not allowed to ask questions. We're gonna send our children and our husbands into the desert now, and I can't ask a question, because I will be lynched." This is what Rather said in London. He looked defeated and awful, and I was thinking, Why am I feeling sorry for this guy who is worth millions? He should turn to the camera and say, "Well, now for the truth. Over to you, Greg, in London." The problem is that he can't report the story of the intelligence agents who are told not to look at the Bin Laden family, not to look at Saudi funding of terror.

The journalists themselves are also to blame, says Palast. And I think he's got an excellent point there.

HUSTLER: What makes Rather afraid to do his job?
PALAST: It's not just that there are brutal shepherds like Rupert Murdoch out there to beat the dickens out of any reporter that asks the wrong questions; it's all about making news on the cheap. You know, for some of these editors, cheap and easy is a philosophy of life. To do a heavy-duty story on Bush, his oil and Bush and his gold-mining company is beyond them. A little bit of the Harken stock scandal came out, but that story was already seven years old. To some extent they know that there are certain things you cannot say. Rather says he would be necklaced for telling the truth.
HUSTLER: He said that? What did he mean?
PALAST: In South Africa, under apartheid, if someone didn't like you, they put a burning tire around your neck. That was called "necklacing." On my show, Rather said, "If I ask any questions, I'll be necklaced." And I'm thinking, Oh, that's a good image. It's sad, but if Dan Rather doesn't have the cojones to ask a question, then you name a reporter who's gonna step out and ask about what's going on. It's not that the corporate guys say, "Don't run that story," although that has happened to me many times in North American media, but also the shepherds pick the lambs who won't ask the questions. For example, there was a reporter, some poor producer, who wanted to run a story about how Jack Welch had lied about polluting the Hudson River. The story didn't run. Shockeroo. That was for Dateline NBC, owned by General Electric, of which Jack Welch was the chairman of the board. Or as in the case of Venezuela, I was stunned to come back from Caracas to find a picture on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle of 100,000 people marching against the president of Venezuela. Sounds like he's a terrible guy and people hate him. What they didn't say was that half a million people were marching for him. At least the Soviet Russians knew that the stuff in Pravda was coming out the wrong end of a toilet, whereas, we live under the pretense that the New York Times prints all the news that's fit to print.
HUSTLER: I won't read the New York Times. That publication has no credibility with me.
PALAST: The New York Times ran a story, front page, the first week of September 2001, talking about gold-mining companies in Nevada and how they seem to be getting let off the hook by the Bush Administration on environmental rules. They didn't mention two things in that front-page article: They didn't mention the owner of the big gold mine-Barrick-and they didn't mention who had been on their board-the President's daddy. I brought that up to an editor of the Times. They said, "How dare you? No one has ever accused the New York Times of cowardice," and [former Times writer] Seymour Hersch leaned over to me and said, "That's the guy who had me pushed out of the Times."
HUSTLER: They haven't really told the truth about Bush and the 2000 election, either.
PALAST: I've got brand-new, deeply evil stuff about that in the new book. What happened was that, five months before the election, Katherine Harris, acting under orders from Jeb Bush, knocked 57,000 voters off the rolls. They were suspected of being evildoers and felons and, therefore, not allowed to vote in Florida. Here's the news: Of the 57,000 people, 97% were innocent of crimes, but they were guilty of being black. Half of them were African-American or Hispanic-in other words, Democratic voters. Was the state guessing who the people of color were? In Florida, it's like South Africa; they list your race right on your registration. There was no guessing. These people not only lost their vote, but lost their president. BBC figures Gore lost 22,000 votes this way, but you didn't read that in the U.S. press. You didn't read in the U.S. press that they say they're going to allow the voters back on in 2003. That means that they were screwed for the election of 2002 as well. I ran the story of the theft of the election on the BBC. Then a hotshot with CBS News calls me and says, "Oh, that's a great story, can we have a piece of it? We want something new." I said, "Yeah, I got something for you: Jeb Bush's office, the governor of Florida, is involved in knocking off the voters too, not just Katherine Harris, and there's a letter dated September 18, 2000, which directs county-elections officials to deliberately violate the law and not register a bunch of people who are Democrats. These are people who committed crimes in other states. Jeb can't legally stop them from voting, but he did anyway. And he knows that these people are Democrats, because there's something about going to jail that turns people [into] Democrats, about 93% [of ex-cons vote Democrat]."
HUSTLER: So, people who were either black or who had previously gone to jail were just automatically eliminated?
PALAST: Right. Jeb sent out the letter anyway, September 18, 2000, despite two court orders saying he couldn't do that. I had an insider in his office, some poor woman, shaking, saying, "I gotta read you this letter." She knew about the court orders. Okay, so I said to CBS, "That's a story." CBS News didn't run the story-one night, two nights. I said, "What happened?" They said, "It didn't stand up." I said, "How do you know the story didn't stand up?" "Well, we called Jeb Bush's office, and they said, 'We didn't do it.'" Oh. Hotshot Dan Rather investigative news team. They said, "The letter doesn't exist. It's not in the computer files; it's in no one's files, not in the governor's files. It's nowhere to be found." Then Katherine Harris writes a hysterical, screeching letter to Harper's magazine, calling me twisted and maniacal, but she didn't say I was wrong. She said, "Yeah, we knocked off these people, but it's not my fault; I got a letter from the governor." I called up her office-I didn't say, "This is Mr. Twisted and Maniacal"-I said, "Um, excuse me, I got a letter from your Secretary of State saying that she had a letter from the governor, before the election, regarding removing people from the voter rolls. Could you fax that to me?" Suddenly, the letter that CBS says doesn't exist is faxed to me. I've got it in my hot little hands, the letter that was in Katherine Harris's desk; so CBS just took an official denial, because they're not gonna say, "The President's brother, the governor of the state of Florida, fixed the election"-that we had a coup d'état by computer.

So, in essence it took Mr Palast one phone call to find a confirmation for a story that CBS News was unable to obtain. That may, of course, have been a case of laziness on the part of the CBS News, however, I find it quite reasonable to ask whether that was laziness or lack of willingness to learn the truth.

Greg Palast is certainly a very energetic and dedicated journalist. I think he is setting an example that the media in the US critically needs to follow. For now, however, alternative media appears to be where those interested in the truth as it is ought to go to.

Not a Bad Heist Indeed

NOTE: This article was originally published here on 26 August 2004. Republished for the purpose of newsfeed distribution.

I like heist movies. In films like "Heat" you see some really tough, intelligent guys take well-defended scores, effectively prosecuting a difficult war against both the police and their rivals in the mean streets. They may be immoral,- but they are definitely good.

The real life, I guess, is a bit more prosaic. The heists one sees happening are less risky, done mostly through shuffling the right papers the right way, bribing the right officials, writing vague enough rules and regulations. The work may be mundane, but the results are nonetheless impressive.

In his report Col David Hackworth details the $8.8 billion dollars alleged to have "gone South" in Iraq. This reads like a detective novel, though is a little bit dull for a novel, I'd agree.

For example, the CPA paid 74,000 guards even though the actual number of guards couldn't be validated. On one site alone, 8,206 guards were on the payroll, but only 603 warm bodies could be counted. Elsewhere, more than $17 million was allocated to guards and the Iraqi army without one piece of backup paper. Pals in Iraq say this has been standard drill since the birth of "very dysfunctional" CPA.

The report cites, "An improper $120 million disbursement was made in May 2004 because of miscommunication between CPA/OMB and Comptroller's office." In other words, $120 million went south but was blithely rationalized as some clerks getting their wires crossed!

However, it appears that the GIs whose arms made this little party possible in the first place are not quite invited to it.

Meanwhile, the armed forces' PX system (AAFES) is into charging our GIs in $9 for a 12-inch pizza. A similar pizza is $8.99 at a pizzeria near Greenwich, Conn., where prices compete with Beverly Hills. The manager told me that about half of this price was gross profit. Lt. Col. Debra Pressley of the AAFES insists the $9 price is "fair and competitive with commercial outlets, including locations in Greenwich".

And so it seems to be. But why? Don't our soldiers deserve a better deal? Or is our government reduced to trying to make up the AWOL bucks on our soldiers' backs?

The powers that be sure planned to make a profit by charging $3 per head for watching movies in Iraq at least until we blew the whistle. But once we broke the story, I got e-mails and phone calls from generals and colonels denying that the $3 charge had been scheduled, even though on July 3, 2004, the deputy commander in Balad, Iraq, put out this communication: "CG (Commanding General) has directed that we begin charging movie fees beginning on 7 July 2004 in the amount of $3.00 per show."

The local general now says it wasn't ever going to happen. Ditto the AAFES general and her spinner minions. Like the 9/11 report and the missing money in Iraq, no one will ever be held responsible.

War is good business, I suppose.