From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Tue Jul  1 22:24:43 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:47:58 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Breaking News - Information Clearing House
Message-ID: <000001c34018$78979a60$99d487d9@pbncomputer>







Dear List-members,
 
Media-watch has been quiet again of late. Is that a 
good sign ? Does it mean the 'war' is over ? I thought long and hard (for, 
ooooh, a full three minutes) before deciding to submit the link below - 
curious to hear what thoughts any of you may have on what the writer has to say, 
and how it relates to UK media coverage of the situation. The BBC may well have 
done a splendid documentary highlighting Israel's WMD capacity, but wasn't 
screaming about them from it's globally scattered rooftops in the 
run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Cynical ? Well, if we all claimed a quid 
for each time we've heard Israel and WMD mentioned in the same breath in the 
past ten years on the Beeb, well, maybe we'd raise enough for a 14-inch 
pepperoni and a few cans. Maybe.
 
On an entirely different subject, also curious to 
know whether any of you are familiar with the so-called 'D-Notice' 
arrangement whereby the UK Govt can effectively smother mass-media attention on 
any given topic - is it a 'real' thing or did I just imagine it ? (Like that 
hallucinogenic trip I experienced a few months back when I could've sworn blind 
I was at a rally in Glasgow, at the Armadillo it was - I'm not joshing ! - where 
the biggest demo Glasgow had ever seen told Blair where to put his 'war'. The 
memory sure does play some fearsome tricks...must've been the last time I 
stayed off the wagon more than four days running.) 
 
This D-notice thing : I'm not sure whether or not 
media-watch is regarded by the powers-that-be as an internet 'newspaper' or 
journal, whatever,  so I won't refer to the particular case I'm thinking of 
(in case 'they' come to the house five minutes after me sending this and haul me 
off by the jarlers to the nearest clink)  but any of you familiar with the 
shady story of the 100-year moratorium on public release of the papers relating 
to the Dunblane massacre (and the relevant investigative work by Neil 
McKay) will know what I'm gibbering about. Seriously though, 
 looking for any feedback you may have.
 
One final cry from the wilderness - would any 
list-member who can comment with confidence 
regarding speech-patterns and/or body language please enlighten the rest of 
us as to why Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair are so disturbingly similar in 
their verbal/physical mannerisms ? Campbell does Blair better than Rory Bremner 
(or should that be, Blair does Campbell better than Bremner ?) - which of 
them has been gradually aping the other over the past decade or 
so, and what should that tell us ?
 
I'm sure you'll agree that that's enough for now. 

Best regards to all,
Ian Brotherhood
 
 Thought you might find this 
interesting - <A 
href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3940.htm">http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3940.htm


From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul  2 19:41:34 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:00 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] NYT - A dark jail for Qaeda suspects
Message-ID: <20030702182656.61435.qmail@web80503.mail.yahoo.com>


Hi there, dear Media watch people,
I see that we can also send in older articles.
This one is from 10th March 2003 from the NYT and I
find it very disturbing. It's about the treatment of
prisoners, but it's the mindset of the people in
charge which I personally find worse. 
It feels like a witch hunt, the same madness,
narrowmindedness and arrogance is there.
And I wonder where our justice goes - people will
confess to anything. For heavens sake, we burned 
witches in the middle ages because women confessed
that they were riding on broom sticks.
AI said clearly that this is torture.
Best wishes
Sigi

http://www.iht.com/articles/89194.html
 	
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune |
www.iht.com
A dark jail for Qaeda suspects
Don Van Natta/NYT New York Times
Monday, March 10, 2003 Captives are deprived of sleep
and sometimes chilled
 
CAIRO This article was reported by Raymond Bonner, Don
Van Natta Jr. and Amy Waldman and written by Van
Natta. The New York Times
The capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed provides the
American authorities with their best opportunity yet
to prevent attacks by Al Qaeda and track down Osama
bin Laden. But the detention also presents a tactical
and moral challenge when it comes to the interrogation
techniques used to obtain vital information.
Senior American officials said physical torture would
not be used against Mohammed, regarded as the
operations chief of Al Qaeda and mastermind of the
Sept. 11 attacks.
They said his interrogation would rely on what they
consider acceptable techniques like sleep and light
deprivation and the temporary withholding of food,
water, access to sunlight and medical attention.
American officials acknowledged that such techniques
were recently applied as part of the interrogation of
Abu Zubaydah, the highest-ranking Al Qaeda operative
in custody until the capture of Mohammed on March 1.
Painkillers were withheld from Zubaydah, who was shot
several times during his capture.
But the urgency of obtaining information about
potential attacks and the opaque nature of the way
interrogations are carried out can blur the line
between accepted and unaccepted actions, several
American officials said.
Routine techniques include covering suspects' heads
with black hoods for hours at a time and forcing them
to stand or kneel in uncomfortable positions in
extreme cold or heat, American and other officials
familiar with interrogations said. Questioners may
also feign friendship and respect to elicit
information.
In some cases, American officials said, women are used
as interrogators to try to humiliate men unaccustomed
to dealing with women in positions of authority.
Interrogations of important Al Qaeda operatives like
Mohammed occur at isolated locations intentionally
outside the jurisdiction of American law. Some places
have been kept secret, but American officials
acknowledged that the CIA has interrogation centers at
the U.S. air base at Bagram in Afghanistan and at a
base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Al Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi Binalshibh, a
suspect in the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks, were
initially taken to a secret CIA installation in
Thailand but have since been moved, American officials
said.
Intelligence officials also acknowledged that some
suspects had been turned over to security services in
countries known to employ torture. There have also
been isolated, if persistent, reports of beatings in
some American-operated centers. American military
officials in Afghanistan are investigating the deaths
of two prisoners at Bagram in December.
American officials have guarded the interrogation
results. But George Tenet, the director of central
intelligence, said in December that suspects
interrogated overseas had produced important
information.
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld have said that American techniques
adhere to international accords that ban the use of
torture and that "all appropriate measures" are
employed in interrogations.
Rights advocates and lawyers for prisoners' rights
have accused the United States of quietly embracing
torture as an acceptable means of getting information
in the global anti-terrorism campaign.
"They don't have a policy on torture," said Holly
Burkhalter, the U.S. director of Physicians for Human
Rights, one of five groups pressing the Pentagon for
assurances that detainees are not being tortured.
"There is no specific policy that eschews torture."
Critics also assert that transferring Al Qaeda
suspects to countries where torture is believed to be
common - like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia -
violates American law and the 1984 international
convention against torture, which bans such transfers.
Some American and other officials subscribe to a view,
held by a number of outside experts, that physical
coercion is largely ineffective. The officials say the
most effective interrogation methods involve a mix of
psychological disorientation, physical deprivation and
ingratiating acts, all of which can take weeks or
months.
"Pain alone will often make people numb and
unresponsive," said Magnus Ranstorp, deputy director
of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political
Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland. "You
have to engage people to get into their minds and
learn what is there."
About 3,000 Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been
detained since the autumn of 2001. Some have since
been freed. The largest known group, about 650, is
being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. American officials
said the detainees at Guantanamo and similar
military-run centers were not regarded as having
valuable information.
Senior Al Qaeda members, however, are interrogated by
specially trained CIA officers and interpreters. FBI
agents submit questions but do not generally take
part, American officials said.
Omar Faruq, a confidant of bin Laden's and one of Al
Qaeda's senior operatives in Southeast Asia, was
captured last June by Indonesian agents acting on a
tip from the CIA. Agents familiar with the case said a
black hood was dropped over his head and he was loaded
onto a CIA aircraft.
When he arrived at his destination several hours
later, the hood was removed. On the wall in front of
him were the seals of the New York City Police and
Fire Departments, a Western official said.
It was, said a former senior CIA officer who took part
in similar sessions, a mind game called false flag,
intended to leave the captive disoriented, isolated
and vulnerable. Sometimes the decor is faked to make
it seem as though the suspect has been taken to a
country with a reputation for brutal interrogation.
In this case, officials said, Faruq was in the CIA
interrogation center at the Bagram air base. American
officials were convinced that he knew a lot about
pending attacks and the Al Qaeda network in Southeast
Asia, which bin Laden sent him to set up in 1998. The
details of the interrogation are unknown, though one
intelligence official briefed on the sessions said
Faruq initially had provided useless scraps of
information.
What is known is that the questioning was prolonged,
extending day and night for weeks. It is likely,
experts say, that the proceedings followed a pattern,
with Faruq left naked most of the time, his hands and
feet bound. While international law requires prisoners
to be allowed eight hours' sleep a day, interrogators
do not necessarily let them sleep for eight
consecutive hours.
Faruq may also have been hooked up to sensors, then
asked questions to which interrogators knew the
answers, so they could gauge his truthfulness,
officials said.
The Western intelligence official described Faruq's
interrogation as "not quite torture, but about as
close as you can get."
Over a three-month period, the official said, the
suspect was fed very little, while being subjected to
sleep and light deprivation, prolonged isolation and
room temperatures that varied from 100 degrees to 10
degrees Fahrenheit (38 to -12 centigrade). In the end
he began to cooperate.
Faruq began to tell of plans to drive explosives-laden
trucks into American diplomatic centers. A day later,
embassies in Indonesia and more than a dozen other
countries in Southeast Asia were closed, officials
said. He also provided detailed information about
people involved in those operations and other plots,
writing out lengthy descriptions. He held out longer
than Zubaydah, who American officials said began to
cooperate after two months of interrogation.
Breaking Mohammed may prove tougher because he is a
hardened veteran, experts said.
The secret CIA center at Bagram where Faruq probably
remains is near the two-story detention center where
lower-level suspects are being held. Both sites are
off limits, even to most military personnel. The only
descriptions of life inside have come from released
detainees.
American officials at the base say that all detainees
are treated according to international law and are
held under humane conditions. Still, the Americans
expressed reluctance to describe details of the
conditions because, as Colonel Roger King, spokesman
for the American-led force in Afghanistan, put it:
"Every detail we give you about how we run the
facility provides information to the enemy about how
to be more successful in resisting if captured."
But he did provide some information that both
complemented and contradicted the descriptions given
by former detainees.
In a typical prison, where punishment is the aim,
routine governs life. At Bagram, where eliciting
information is the goal, the opposite is true.
Disorientation is a tool of interrogation and
therefore a way of life. To that end, the building -
an unremarkable hangar - is lighted 24 hours a day,
making sleep almost impossible, said Mohammed Shah, an
Afghan farmer who was held there for 18 days.
King said it was legitimate to use lights, noise and
vision restriction, and to alter, without warning, the
time between meals, to blur a detainee's sense of
time. He said sleep deprivation was "probably within
the lexicon."
Prisoners are watched, moved and, according to some,
manhandled by military police officials. Most
detainees live on the hangar's bottom floor, a large
area divided with wire mesh into group cells holding 8
to 10 prisoners each. Some are kept on the top floor
in isolation cells.
Former detainees have given disparate accounts of
their treatment, with the harshest tales, predictably,
emerging from the isolation cells. Those who have
probably been subjected to the most thorough
interrogations, and the greatest duress, have probably
not been released.
King said that an American military pathologist had
determined that the deaths of two prisoners in
December were homicides and that the circumstances
were still under investigation.
Two former prisoners said they had been forced to
stand with their hands chained to the ceiling and
their feet shackled in the isolation cells. One said
he was kept naked except when he was taken to
interrogation room or the bathroom. Shah, who was
never in an isolation cell, said neither his hands nor
feet were ever tied, but that he had seen prisoners
with chains around their ankles.
King said that the building was heated and that the
prisoners were fed a balanced diet under which most
gained weight. Shah said he had received plentiful
food - bread, biscuits, rice and meat - three times a
day. The center holds fewer than 100 people, so
detainees are regularly released or transported
elsewhere to make room for more. Most probably spend
two to three months there, King said.
Shah said his interrogators used the threat of moving
him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to try to force
cooperation, warning him conditions there would not be
as pleasant. In the prison there, U.S. military
officials said, the population, now relatively steady
at about 650, was sorted into varying categories of
dangerousness, a change from the early days when
prisoners were treated equally, each isolated in an
individual cell.
This month the military command opened a new
medium-security section called Camp Four where
selected prisoners live in dormitory-style housing,
congregate, shower regularly, play board games and are
able to write more frequent letters to family members.
About 20 prisoners moved in last week, and when
construction is completed as many as 200 prisoners
could be housed there.
Still, there are signs of deep psychological distress
among the prison population. There have been 20
reported suicide attempts involving the prisoners, an
extraordinarily high number compared with other prison
populations, said Dr. Terry Kupers, an Oakland
psychiatrist who is an authority on mental health in
prisons. Another suicide attempt took place Friday,
The Associated Press reported Sunday.
Except for those promoted to Camp Four, the regime for
most prisoners has been isolation in single cells.
They are permitted out of the cells twice a week, for
15 minutes each time, to shower and exercise in the
yard. They are not permitted to speak to others.
Lieutenant Commander Barbara Burfeind, a Pentagon
spokeswoman, said guards were trained to recognize
signs of deep depression and had managed to prevent
any suicides.
Far less is known about the conditions for the
suspected Al Qaeda members who have been turned over
to other governments, either after the United States
finished with them or as part of the interrogation
procedure. Even the numbers and locations are a
mystery. American and foreign intelligence officials
have acknowledged that suspects have been sent to
Jordan, Syria and Egypt. In addition, Moroccan
intelligence officials have questioned suspects and
shared information with their American counterparts.
In one case in Morocco, lawyers for three Saudis and
seven Moroccans accused of plotting to blow up
American and British ships in the Strait of Gibraltar
last summer said their clients had been tortured.
Moroccan officials denied that physical torture was
used but acknowledged using sleep and light
deprivation and serial teams of interrogators.
"I am allowed to use all means in my possession," a
senior Moroccan intelligence official said. "You have
to fight all his resistance at all levels and show him
that he is wrong, that his ideology is wrong and is
not connected to religion. We break them, yes."
 Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune



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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Jul  2 21:59:33 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:01 2004
Subject: [Media-watch]
Message-ID: <001001c340dd$dcbc8bc0$8cc887d9@pbncomputer>







Dear Mr Hanrahan,
 
I've just watched your report, on News 
24, regarding the return of the remains of the 6 British Military Police to 
RAF Brize Norton this afternoon.
 
The bodies were returned early afternoon (while our 
Prime Minister was wrestling with Iain Duncan Smith over the punctuality of 
trains) -  you covered the ceremony live on News 24. The report I've 
just watched was broadcast at approx 8.15 p.m. Presumably you had plenty of time 
to decide what form your finally edited report(s) would take for the 
evening bulletins. With that in mind, I hope you will take a minute or so to 
consider this viewer's assessment of your considered, edited, objective 
commentary on an important event.
 
I did not tape this evening's report and cannot 
quote you exactly, but the concluding words of your report were to the effect 
that  '...there were no prayers...only symbols to express a 
nation's gratitude and...' 
 
The emboldened words are, I believe, 
accurate.
 
How dare you make such a statement 
? 
 
I watched the repatriation ceremony this afternoon 
with many conflicting emotions, but 'gratitude' never once arose. Those six men 
were in Iraq following the orders of a govt which - everyone knows 
- was acting against the majority of public opinion in pursuing war.  
A great many people in this country are capable of supporting our armed forces, 
but also objecting to their use for illegal ends. Your report this evening made 
no effort whatever to acknowledge that fact. Put bluntly - those men should not 
be dead because they should never have been there in the first 
place.
 
Was I the only viewer who felt gut-sorry for 
the families and friends of those men, tried to imagine how painful it would be 
if my own son was butchered by a mob as a result of being ordered to participate 
in an illegal invasion ? 
 
Was I the only viewer who wondered what the 
relatives and friends of those dead men might have wanted to say to the 
'grateful' nation had you and your illustrious colleagues given them the chance 
? 
 
Was I the only viewer who wondered why you 
neglected to comment on the presence of Mr Geoff Hoon at the ceremony ? I 
cannot speak for any of the deceased's relatives, but if my boy was being 
brought back to me in a flag-draped box because a cabal of careerist bastards 
had decided that the illegal invasion of another country was, in their 
considered opinion, 'the right thing to do', I know I would have had something 
to say to him, and I would've wanted the rest of the country to hear 
it.
 
The simple, if uncomfortable fact that no 
solid justification for the invasion has yet surfaced should have found its way 
into your summary of today's event. It is understandable that no such 
observations were made during live transmission of the ceremony, but any 
considered, objective overview of the event (e.g. the edited news packages for 
evening broadcast) should at least have attempted to place the sombre 
occasion in a fuller context which acknowledges the deep and general 
disquiet over this avoidable conflict. 
 
By what authority do you take it upon yourself to 
assume that an entire nation is 'grateful' that six outnumbered men 
were summarily executed by desperate people who, quite 
understandably, viewed them as aggressive invaders ? Does anyone 
review your scripts before you commit them to tape ? Did you honestly believe 
that such a contentious comment would not immediately draw reaction such as this 
? 
 
To your credit, you did allude to the possibility 
that there may be more such ceremonies. Following the tough-talk from Jack 
'Rambo' Straw today, there surely will be.  Given that you made much of the 
deceased being accorded 'equal dignity' upon their return, I hope that you will 
be present to issue further paeans on the nation's behalf as you cover the 
solemn repatriation of each and every UK citizen who is brought back from 
Iraq as a result of this unjustifiable aggression.
 
I'm sure thisis not the only notice of complaint 
you will et regarding your day's work, and hopefully you will view them 
collectively in due course, be able to calmly assess what you did. Yes, it 
sounded good, it was tear-jerking stuff.  But you are not a poet. 

 
You are a journalist.
 
So please, in future, as the bodies are being 
loaded into hearses, be more mindful of those who do not feel 'gratitude' so 
much as a deep and burning anger that so many lives, Iraqi and American as well 
as British, have been horribly wasted by this disgusting 
'war'. British people from all walks of life took to the streets in 
millions to demonstrate fear and loathing of what Blair and his cohorts were 
doing - perhaps we always knew that they would do it anyway, but now, today, 
when we have every right to say, 'we told you so', the very least we can expect 
is that the BBC will not succumb to mindless heartstring-tugging 
jingoism.
 
Mr Hanrahan, you are a Senior Correspondent. Right 
now, when the BBC needs all the public support it can get, your platitudinous 
and offensive reporting can only provide further ammunition to the corporation's 
critics. Please do better.
 
Sincerely,
 
Ian Brotherhood
 
 


From billy.clark at ntlworld.com  Thu Jul  3 18:22:35 2003
From: billy.clark at ntlworld.com (Billy Clark)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:01 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] NAOMI KLEIN on NGOs
Message-ID: <552288F2-AD81-11D7-9DF2-000393A21DAE@ntlworld.com>

Bush to NGOs: Watch your mouths

By NAOMI KLEIN

06/20/03: (Globe & Mail) The Bush administration has found its next target
for pre-emptive war, but it's not Iran, Syria or North Korea -- not yet,
anyway.

Before launching any new foreign adventures, the Bush gang has some homeland
housekeeping to take care of: It is going to sweep up those pesky
non-governmental organizations that are helping to turn world opinion
against U.S. bombs and brands.

The war on NGOs is being fought on two clear fronts. One buys the silence
and complicity of mainstream humanitarian and religious groups by offering
lucrative reconstruction contracts. The other marginalizes and criminalizes
more independent-minded NGOs by claiming that their work is a threat to
democracy. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is in
charge of handing out the carrots, while the American Enterprise Institute,
the most powerful think tank in Washington, D.C., is wielding the sticks.

On May 21 in Washington, Andrew Natsios, the head of USAID, gave a speech
blasting U.S. NGOs for failing to play a role many of them didn't realize
they had been assigned: doing public relations for the U.S. government.
According to InterAction, the network of 160 relief and development NGOs
that hosted the conference, Mr. Natsios was "irritated" that starving and
sick Iraqi and Afghan children didn't realize that their food and vaccines
were coming to them courtesy of George W. Bush. From now on, NGOs had to do
a better job of linking their humanitarian assistance to U.S. foreign policy
and making it clear that they are "an arm of the U.S. government." If they
didn't, InterAction reported, "Natsios threatened to personally tear up
their contracts and find new partners."

For aid workers, there are even more strings attached to U.S. dollars. USAID
told several NGOs that have been awarded humanitarian contracts that they
cannot speak to the media -- all requests from reporters must go through
Washington. Mary McClymont, CEO of InterAction, calls the demands
"unprecedented," and says, "It looks like the NGOs aren't independent and
can't speak for themselves about what they see and think."

Many humanitarian leaders are shocked to hear their work described as "an
arm" of government; most see themselves as independent (that would be the
"non-governmental" part of the name).

The best NGOs are loyal to their causes, not to countries, and they aren't
afraid to blow the whistle on their own governments. Think of Médecins sans
frontières standing up to the White House and the European Union over AIDS
drug patents, or Human Rights Watch's campaign against the death penalty in
the United States. Mr. Natsios himself embraced this independence in his
previous job as vice-president of World Vision. During the North Korean
famine, he didn't hesitate to blast his own government for withholding food
aid, calling the Clinton administration's response "too slow" and its claim
that politics was not a factor "total nonsense."

Don't expect candour like that from the aid groups Mr. Natsios now oversees
in Iraq. These days, NGOs are supposed to do nothing more than quietly pass
out care packages with a big "brought to you by the U.S.A." logo attached --
in public-private partnerships with Bechtel and Halliburton, of course.

That is the message of NGO Watch, an initiative of the American Enterprise
Institute and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies,
which takes aim at the growing political influence of the non-profit sector.
The stated purpose of the Web site, launched on June 11, is to "bring
clarity and accountability to the burgeoning world of NGOs."

In fact, it is a McCarthyite blacklist, telling tales on any NGO that dares
speak against Bush administration policies or in support of international
treaties opposed by the White House.

This bizarre initiative takes as its premise the idea that there is
something sinister about "unelected" groups of citizens getting together to
try to influence their government. "The extraordinary growth of advocacy
NGOs in liberal democracies has the potential to undermine the sovereignty
of constitutional democracies," the site claims.

Coming from the AEI, this is not without irony. As Raj Patel, policy analyst
at the California-based NGO Food First, points out, "The American Enterprise
Institute is an NGO itself and it is supported by the most powerful
corporations on the planet. They are accountable only to their board, which
includes Motorola, American Express and ExxonMobil." As for influence, few
peddle it quite like the AEI, the looniest ideas of which have a way of
becoming Bush administration policy. And no wonder. Richard Perle, member
and former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, is an AEI
fellow, along with Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president; the Bush
administration is crowded with former AEI fellows.

As President Bush said at an AEI dinner in February, "At the American
Enterprise Institute, some of the finest minds in our nation are at work on
some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my
administration has borrowed 20 such minds." In other words, the AEI is more
than a think tank; it's Mr. Bush's outsourced brain.

Taken together with Mr. Natsios's statements, this attack on the non-profit
sector marks the emergence of a new Bush doctrine: NGOs should be nothing
more than the good-hearted charity wing of the military, silently mopping up
after wars and famines. Their job is not to ask how these tragedies could
have been averted, or to advocate for policy solutions. And it is certainly
not to join anti-war and fair-trade movements pushing for real political
change.

The control freaks in the White House have really outdone themselves this
time. First they tried to silence governments critical of their foreign
policies by buying them off with aid packages and trade deals. (Last month
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said that the United States would
only enter into new trade agreements with countries that offered
"co-operation or better on foreign policy and security issues.") Next, they
made sure the press didn't ask hard question during the war by trading
journalistic access for editorial control.

Now they are attempting to turn relief workers in Iraq and Afghanistan into
publicists for Mr. Bush's Brand U.S.A., to embed them in the Pentagon, like
Fox News reporters.

The U.S. government is usually described as "unilateralist," but I don't
think that's quite accurate. The Bush administration may be willing to go it
alone, but what it really wants is legions of self-censoring followers, from
foreign governments to national journalists and international NGOs.

This is not a lone wolf we are dealing with, it's a sheep-herder. The
question is: Which of the NGOs will play the sheep?

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows.

© Copyright 2003 Globe & Mail


From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul  4 13:35:57 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:02 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] What Do Americans Know? Not Very Much
Message-ID: <20030704122001.3007.qmail@web80505.mail.yahoo.com>



Hello, hello!
Danny Schechter writes about the state of the American
media and what Americans actuallly know.
Story  from 'Newsday' 2 July, 2003.
Best 
Sigi

What Do Americans Know? Not Very Much

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpsch023355487jul02,0,2481098.story
By Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is the editor of the Web site
Mediachannel.org and the author, most recently, of
"Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media
Failed to Cover the War on Iraq
July 2, 2003
Millions of Americans accept what they are told and
think they understand what they see. And what they are
told and what they see is most often news as a
manipulated commodity. But the facts that really count
rarely reach a significant number of the public's ears
or eyes.
Also, most reporters know governments lie, mislead and
deceive.They also know that the press is ostensibly
there to keep an eye on governments, to dissect errors
and omissions by offering more truthful
counter-narratives. That was the role an adversarial
media played during Watergate, during the Vietnam War,
and even, if distastefully, during the Clinton
administration.
Today, our media has abandoned this historic role,
That part of the public that remembers the great
journalists of the past knows it. Even journalistic
greats admit it. Just before his death June 11,
newscaster David Brinkley said of the medium that was
his life. "Television news has become so trivial and
devoid of content as to be little different from
entertainment programming."
But many in the public don't even expect the media to
be honest in its reporting. The Jason Blair affair at
The New York Times was the tip of an iceberg. Major
newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The Washington
Post have, in the past, been humiliated by revelations
that reporters falsified stories. Beyond simple
credibility, today's media system has fused news biz
and show biz.
News understanding (and misunderstanding) is driven
more by impressions and images than information. One
recent Gallup Poll survey reported that 40 percent of
the people believed weapons of mass destruction have
been found in Iraq. An early poll found a similar
percentage saying there was an Iraqi hijacker on 9/11.
In contrast, 44 percent of the public in England,
where the media is more critical of the government,
told the Daily Telegraph's Yougov Poll that they
believe their government and the Bush administration
misled them about the threat from Iraq. At the same
time, a CNN/USA Today Poll found that 56 percent of
Americans said the war was justified if weapons of
mass destruction are never found.
The general absence of comprehensive, thorough
reporting is particularly regrettable with Washington
under the control of an administration that has taken
public relations into the realm of "perception
management." Its corporate-trained communications
specialists have perfected a 24-hour spin machine
while coordinating every official utterance. They've
coined and tested repeatable catch-phrases to mobilize
opinion. They want to ensure that we regurgitate their
simplified phrases, and salute their patriotic stands.
In their world, propaganda is passed off as marketing.
Granted, because of cable television and the Internet,
the number of information sources available to the
public has exploded. But "in-depth" television
reporting is brief and ephemeral and rarely is
retained in the minds of the audience. Cable outlets
serve niche audiences. More diverse Web sites often
have limited constituencies. Weekly and monthly
opinion magazines such as The Nation, the Atlantic
Monthly, The New Yorker or Harper's may report in
genuine depth on issues of consequence but mostly have
relatively small circulations. Many appeal to an elite
segment of the population that thinks it's influential
and numerous, but is neither.
When it comes to newspapers, probably a couple of
million people a day read the nation's best known
daily - The New York Times. They think they are an
influential, important group and they believe they
have all the facts about everything that's going on in
the world. Indeed, for many of them, the Times is the
world. But the Times makes hundreds of errors annually
and its reporting is often influenced by its own
agendas. More importantly, Times readers really are
just a tiny segment of America.
All of the above represents a problem for our
democracy. The most important day in America isn't
Christmas. It's the first Tuesday after the first
Monday in November. There are more than 163 million
voters nationwide. Only a tiny percentage of them
could honestly be described as truly well informed
and, therefore, they don't amount to as much as many
media mavens delude themselves into thinking.
It is context, background and interpretation that give
information meaning. When that is missing, as it often
is, so is understanding. 

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc. 


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From ddc at soc.soton.ac.uk  Fri Jul  4 13:37:54 2003
From: ddc at soc.soton.ac.uk (David Cromwell)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:03 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Biased Broadcasting Corporation
Message-ID: <f0431010abb2b21b2b42c@[139.166.245.30]>

Corporation


Hello,

An interesting, timely and very useful article in today's
Guardian undermining any misapprehension that the BBC has been
'anti-war'!

best wishes,

David Cromwell

Media Lens
http://www.medialens.org


-----------------------------------------<span
>-------------------------------
Biased broadcasting corporation

A survey of the main broadcasters' coverage of the invasion of Iraq
shows the claim that the BBC was anti-war is the opposite of the
truth

Professor Justin Lewis
Friday July 4, 2003
The Guardian

The recent furore about the BBC's coverage of the war in Iraq has
generated rather more heat than light. But behind the government's
attack on the BBC lies the serious accusation that the corporation's
coverage of the conflict was anti-war. This claim goes much further
than the much publicised attack on Andrew Gilligan - the BBC's
critics in the government have clearly implied that Gilligan's
stories are part of a more systematic, institutional bias.

So, is it true? The answer has little to do with the work of
individual reporters - we know from previous research that people are
influenced by the general weight of TV coverage rather than by
particular reports. For this reason, we have conducted a more
comprehensive survey of the way the four main UK broadcasters - the
BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky - covered the war. After careful analysis
of all the main evening news bulletins during the war, we have been
able to build up a fairly clear picture of the coverage on the
different channels.

Matthew d'Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph described how "in the
eyes of exasperated Blairites - the BBC whinged and whined, and did
its best to sabotage the war effort". But the pattern that
emerges from our study is very different. For example, we asked which
of the four channels was most likely to use the British government as
a source. The answer, it turns out, is the BBC - where the proportion
of government sources was twice that of ITN and Channel 4 News. The
BBC was also a little more likely to use British military sources in
its coverage than the other three channels.

When it comes to reporting the other side, on the other hand, the BBC
was much more cautious. Sky and Channel 4 were both much more likely
than the BBC to quote official Iraqi sources. The BBC was also less
likely than the other three channels to use independent sources like
the Red Cross - many of whom were critical of the war effort (Channel
4 used such sources three times more often than the BBC, Sky twice as
often).

The government's case for war was based partly on the idea that most
Iraqi people wanted liberation and hence supported the invasion. So
to what extent did TV news portray the Iraqi people as welcoming US
and British troops? This turned out to be a dominant theme of the
coverage: across the news as a whole, the Iraqi people were around
three times more likely to be portrayed as pro-invasion than
anti-invasion. How far this represented actual Iraqi public opinion
we have no way of verifying, but it fits happily with the
government's version of events. This ratio was remarkably consistent
across all TV channels - with the exception of Channel 4, where the
ratio was a little less than two to one.

When it came to reporting the Iraqi casualties - clearly a negative
for the government's case - we found fewer reports on the BBC than on
the other three channels. Again, it was Channel 4 which was most
likely to offer a critical note - 44% of its reports about the Iraqi
people were about civilian casualties, compared with 30% on Sky, 24%
on ITN, and only 22% on the BBC.

The picture that emerges from our data is fairly clear: if there was
a TV channel that was more likely to report information damaging to
the government's case, it was Channel 4. The BBC, by contrast, was
often the channel least likely to engage in "whingeing and
whining". So, for example, when Tony Blair accused the Iraqi
regime of executing British soldiers - a story Downing Street was
later forced to retract - the BBC was the only one of the early
evening news bulletins that failed to examine the lack of evidence to
support it, or to report the rather embarrassing government
retraction the next day.

And when it came to the many other stories from military sources that
turned out to be false, such as the Basra "uprising" or the
launching of Scud missiles into Kuwait, Channel 4 was the only
channel - rightly as it turned out - to offer a note of scepticism or
caution. The BBC, ITN and Sky were, on the whole, much more trusting
of US and British military sources.

The only finding that does not quite fit this pattern was,
interestingly, the coverage given to weapons of mass destruction. The
government was clearly keen to emphasise the danger posed by Iraq's
alleged chemical or biological weapons, so to what extent did
broadcasters report speculation hinting at their likely or possible
use? While this turned out to be a much smaller theme during the war
than we might have expected beforehand, we found that all four
channels were much more likely to report speculation that implied
Iraq might use such weapons than to cast doubt on their possible
use.

But in this case, we found a few more reports on the BBC than
elsewhere which allowed doubt to creep in - whether by reporting that
such weapons had not been found or by casting doubt on their possible
use. And yet, even here, the BBC was more than three times more
likely to suggest that such weapons might be used than to suggest
they might not. And, as it turned out, the BBC and the other
broadcasters all placed much too much faith in the plausibility of
such rumours.

Indeed, far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give
credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to
the government in its war coverage. Either way, it is clear that the
accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or
sustained analysis.

· Professor Justin Lewis is deputy head of Cardiff
University's school of journalism

<font
color="#0000FF">comment@guardian.co.uk<font
color="#000000">
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003


http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/<span
>0,3604,991007,00.html




From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul  4 16:27:32 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:03 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 2 articles from Haaretz- will Iran be next - soon?
Message-ID: <20030704151203.75189.qmail@web80509.mail.yahoo.com>


hi there,
enclosed are TWO articles from today's daily 'Haaretz'
 (Israel). I find them very worrying.
The language is familiar: but instead of Iraq the word
Iran is used and described as threat to the world; 
once again we have the 'axil of evil' vocabulary used,

and  weapons of mass destruction (nuclear) are thrown
in as well for good measure
Haven't we heard this one before? 
I am really concerned here.
Best, 
Sigi

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/314484.html

Last Update: 04/07/2003 16:05
New Iranian missile threat worries Israel 
By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz
Service

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Friday he hoped
the International Atomic Energy Agency and
international powers would pressure Iran to allow
weapons inspectors into the country and to sign
additional nonproliferation agreements
guaranteeing that it has no intention to develop
nuclear weapons. 

Shaloms comments come after the
publication in Haaretz that
Iran tested a Shihab-3 missile,
which has a range that can
reach Israel. 

"The radical regime in Iran is
threatening the stability not
only of the state of Israel,
but the European countries

also," Shalom said. "Iran is a danger to the
stability of all the world." 

The launch last week was the most successful so
far of the seven or eight tests of the missile
over the last five years, and has increased
worries in Washington - which spotted the test
with its tracking mechanisms - and in Israel. 

If the assessment proves to be true that the
missile, which was launched from east to west,
had an effective range beyond the
1,300-kilometer red line, meaning the range
from western Iran to Israel, the Iranians could
position the launching pads for the rocket
deeper inside their country. 

The Iranian threat will be one of the subjects
under discussion when Chief of Staff Moshe
Ya'alon visits the Pentagon and U.S. armed
forces bases next week. Ya'alon's itinerary is
supposed to include the Florida headquarters of
two key commands: Centcom and Special
Operations at MacDill air force base. 

More data is now being collected and collated in
the West about the missile test and about the
progress being made in the Iranian missile 
program, which is based on North Korean
missiles. In previous tests, when the rocket
was powered by a North Korean engine, the tests
were successful, but when the engines were
Iranian-made, even with North Korean know-how,
they tended to fail - despite statements by
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shakhmani in 2002
that Iran can "develop everything" and does not
need help from foreign sources like China or
Russia. 

The report of the Shihab-3 test is an incentive
for Israel equipping itself with more Arrow
missiles made by the Israel Aircrafts 
Industries and soon to go into a joint
production process with Boeing. 

Israel is also concerned about the growing ties
between Iran and Libya. Indeed, the Libyan
threat is now the reason for a third Arrow
battery even though the Iraqi threat is gone.
One response to the Libyan threat would be an
Arrow battery mounted on a naval vessel. 

Western experts said that the 16-meter
single-stage Shihab-3, which can carry up to a
ton of explosives in its payload, is not very
accurate, with the probability of hitting
within three kilometers of any target it is
launched at. But it is possible that has been
improved over the past year. In any case, the
missile range already includes Israel, Turkey, 
the Indian subcontinent and the American forces
in the Gulf. Iran has plans for two
longer-range missiles: a Shihab-4, with a
2,000-kilometer range and a Shihab-5, with a
5,500-kilometer range. 

The last Shihab missile test resulted in a Bush
administration statement expressing "serious
concerns" about the Iranian missile project,
which is a "threat to the region and U.S.
interests." 

The next commander of Centcom, Gen. John
Abizaid, who replaces Tommy Franks on Monday,
testified last week to a Senate committee that
"Iran has the largest ballistic missile
inventory in the Central Command region to
include long-range weapons of mass destruction
and delivery systems capable of reaching
deployed U.S. forces in the theater." And he
warned, "Iran's long-term ability to develop
nuclear weapons remains a source of serious
concern." 

He told the committee that "Iran casts a shadow
on security and stability in the Gulf region.
Iran's military is second only to the United
States. U.S. allies in the Gulf acknowledge
Iran's increasingly proactive efforts to soften
its image and appear less hegemonic; however,
Iran's military poses a potential threat to
neighboring countries." 	
The file photo of the Shihab-3 missile. (Reuters)
Related Links
* Analysis / `Axis of evil' stepping up mutual
cooperation 
* Head of Iranian missile project: Our rockets can
reach Israel 
* Iran got nuclear know-how from North Korea 

Last Update: 18/06/2003 02:54
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=304929&contrassID=1
Analysis / `Axis of evil' stepping up mutual
cooperation 
By Ze'ev Schiff

While Iran continues to deny international
suspicions that it is developing nuclear weapons,
U.S. intelligence and other intelligence services
have discovered that Libya is paying large sums of
money to Iran for expert aid to help develop a
mid-range missile. According to the information,
Tehran has been sending a team of ground-to-ground
missile experts to Libya to advance the Benghazi
program. 

The Iranian delegation, most
importantly, reveals the
secret, dangerous connection
among members of the coalition
that U.S. President George W.
Bush refers to as the "axis of
evil." Although the connection
involves only the missile
sphere at this time, it could
develop into the sharing of

nuclear munitions know-how. North Korea
provided Iran with the know-how and assistance
to develop the Shihab-3 missiles and gave Syria
the know-how to develop Scud-D missiles.
Tehran, in turn, has responded to Libya's
requests for help developing mid-range
missiles. 

Tehran is now in the advanced stages of
developing the Shihab-3, which could reach
Israel. However, some say Tehran still needs to
extend the missile's range by 100-300
kilometers in order to cover a large section of
Israel. 

Libya has old Scud missiles with a 300-km range,
and is making a major effort to acquire or
develop longer-range missiles. Tripoli is
examining the possibility with Tehran and is
ready to pay a high price for such assistance. 

Nuclear development is only one of the issues
bothering Washington. Another issue is Iranian
involvement in terrorism. The United States is
convinced that Al Qaida operatives who
organized the group's recent attack in Riyadh
were directly connected to Iran. In addition,
some of the equipment carried by a Hezbollah
officer who was captured on board a ship
heading to Gaza was made in Iran. The equipment
was meant to improve Qassam rockets by helping
them guarantee a more effective explosion. 

Despite signals reaching United States about
Iran's readiness to negotiate with the
administration on various issues, it is clear
to Washington that these are only false
attempts meant to gain time to develop nuclear
weapons and to divert the Americans onto the
diplomatic track, away from tougher measures. 


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From c.haydon at can-online.org.uk  Mon Jul  7 15:22:13 2003
From: c.haydon at can-online.org.uk (Chris Haydon)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:04 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 'War', demos, what next ? a whip-round.
Message-ID: <3F097B81.BD32B901@can-online.org.uk>

Hallo Media-Watchers,

I am leading a project in Southwark which aims
to make media makers out of the Ordinary Citizen.
Seems to me that should help break the hold that
mainstream has over the mass(es). Will take a
while but the prospects in five years are encouraging.
When I think back to starting my career at LWT in
mid-1970s. Closed shop duopoly controlled on the
inside by ACTT. When I applied to join the union
in autumn 1974, the first thing that happened was
they blacked me ! Didn't know who I was, therefore
I was illegal ... bla bla bla. Technology has given
media tools to the Ordinary Citizen, if they don't
own it they can access it. Before the internet is
regulated into asphyxiation (we pray not for some
while), let the people speak.

There appears to be a latent mass of frustration
across the British people over the way Government
handles itself, handles the media, us, its love affair
with hegemony Dubya-style, and so on.

Thing is - what next ? And will people vote ? And
for whom ? And will they speak up in numbers ?
If IDS isn't it, is Charles Kennedy PM-able ?

Isn't that more worrying than knowing to what
degree information is manipulated ... that there may
be no alternative ? Or does Robin Cook lead a charge
from the left resurrecting Old Labour ?

Time for a Knight in shining armour. Preferably
before the other four horsemen get here ... If we all
had a whip-round, what type of democracy would
we go out and buy ?

Chris Haydon
Director
Community TV Trust
www.communitytvtrust.org
020 7701 0878 / 07970 970 715


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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Tue Jul  8 01:11:02 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:05 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] a nuff is a nuff is...
Message-ID: <000c01c344e6$e1aec500$54c486d9@pbncomputer>







Dear List-Members,
 
THE FOLLOWING IS A DRUNKEN RANT, CONTAINS NO LINKS 
TO INFORMATIVE SITES, IS UNEDITED AND MAY (no, it does - Ed) CONTAIN 
LANGUAGE SOME FIND OFFENSIVE !  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!
 
If today's shenanigans (Foreign Affairs Select 
Committe Report , Gilligan/Campbell-related cobblers etc etc) are not enough to 
convince folk here (in Scotland, where we happen, by kismet, to be) that the 
ball is well and truly on the slates then I don't know what else has to happen 
before 'ordinary', 'decent' folk walk out of their jobs, tear their clothing off 
and starting rolling about, uncontrollably wailing that the end is well and 
truly nigh.
 
These conniving, calculating bastards, posing as 
politicians, correspondents, pundits or whatever-other title they can think of 
to justify one another's existence are telling us, all of us, that Iraq was 
invaded, it's civilians slaughtered in their thousands, because, at least in 
part, the 'evidence' used to justify the genocide was, to 'the best of their 
knowledge', right at the time of going to press. 
 
That's it. 
 
And that really, if I might ventiure 
so bold, that really is enough. 
 
Prime Minister Blair stood before the Commons 
and told our MPs and us - all poor wee pathetic 'us' who couldn't have known no 
better -  with a straight-face, that a document which was 90% plagiarised 
(i.e. STOLEN), crudely amended and more than a decade out-of-date was 
'intelligence' i.e. the PRIME MINISTER, who happens to be a barrister, got up on 
his trotters and vouched for the authenticity of a document whose origin he had 
no awareness of ?
 
Eh ??!!
 
And then, for the delictation of all, I give 
you...Mister Jack Straw, all cock-a-hoop, testosterone bolstered,  who 
claims that the findings exonerate the Govt and sternly ( well, as sternly as a 
man called 'Straw' can) warns the BBC to issue an apology. Campbell claims 
the findings exonerate him and warns everyone, including Blair, to fuck 
off.  The BBC refuses to apologise to anyone and runs a reminder that 
Mastermind is about to be relaunched. Meanwhile, civilians in Iraq are 
sweltering in their own filth, watching their children die as they remember the 
'good old days' when Saddam was in charge.
 
Please, please, please, list-members, whoever you 
are and whatever you do as your 'day' job, don't let this obscenity go 
unchallenged - this small mailing-list is, in the scheme of things, nothing. It 
means nothing at all unless you use it to voice your disgust at what is 
happening. You don't have to have some witty acerbic comment to make, you don't 
have to have established some illuminating on-line link that the rest of us can 
chase-up. All you have to do is say that you are, in whatever capacity, utterly 
sick and tired of being lied to day-in and day-out.
 
I am a fiction writer. It's not a lucrative living. 
I make most of my income writing porno novels. It's not enough to keep us away 
from having to claim State Benefits. No matter - the simple writing of these 
short messages to media-watch, letters of encouragement to other writers on-line 
who are trying their best to fight the mass-media complacency here and overseas, 
particularly in the US - this is the writing that really matters and 
has the potential to make a difference.  Doesn't matter if it's spelled 
correctly, doesn't matter if there's a poetic dynamic to the language, doesn't 
matter if it's written, as this is, with seven pints of cider in one's 
belly.
 
Write down your anger and disgust and send it to 
someone, get it out of your system and know in yourself that you've at least 
tried to make your voice heard despite the huge forces which prevent it from 
being aired mainstream. Do it. Do it now. Maybe just drop a line to an old 
friend, see how s/he feels about it all, cause sure as fate, you'll probably 
find out that we all feel pretty much the same.
 
I mentioned I'm a fiction writer. Yeah, and there's 
plenty of us about these days, trying to do smart new columns for the papers, 
thinking up the next 'big idea' that'll grab the Beeb high-heid yins or maybe - 
imagine it !! - the next 'Harry Potter' ?!. 
 
But there's a great and serious work to be done, 
one that will never be written and never be read - a great novel which collates 
the feelings of those many thousands, nay milions of folk whose 'stream of 
consciousness' will end at a very specific point  i.e that moment when the 
bomb does finally go off in their area. 
 
Me and Yvonne have two beautiful children 
(incidentally, does anyone have children who are not 'beautiful'?) and ever 
since Sep 11th I've had nightmares about that final fraction of a second when 
perhaps, just perhaps, I'll realise that it's finally happened and we're about 
to become part of a radioactive cloud-dust that will circle the Earth for 
eternity. I clasp my missus and weans close to me, hoping that maybe, 
just maybe, by some freak of physics, we'll survive. 
 
Nae chance.
 
There's a certain selfish romance about that 
notion, but I'd much prefer that my loved ones get the chance to die a 
'natural' death, having long-left me and this honking generation of liars well 
behind them. That's why I'm pished and still up way past my bedtime and 
begging you to ask all your friends and pals to start making a noise about these 
bastards who are running things - they are cowards, and cowards cannot 
face a real fight.
 
So, please, fight them.
 
Warm regards to all,
 
Ian Brotherhood


From jamesdoleman at hotmail.com  Wed Jul  9 12:14:40 2003
From: jamesdoleman at hotmail.com (james doleman)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:05 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] The importance of Africa to the USA
Message-ID: <BAY2-F129k3GR89h7wt00004bbc@hotmail.com>




http://new.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/07/06/2349201

_________________________________________________________________
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From JakBonito at aol.com  Wed Jul  9 12:43:00 2003
From: JakBonito at aol.com (JakBonito@aol.com)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:05 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] The Observer Magazine
Message-ID: <17c.1db78b35.2c3d56cc@aol.com>

For those of you out there who haven't seen it, there was an account of the human toll of the war in Iraq in last Sunday's Observer (07/07/03).  Titled 'Iraq: The Human Toll', by Ed Vulliamy, it can be accessed through their website at:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine 

How do we get people to realise that this wasn't war, but murder  ?


From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul  9 18:41:55 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:06 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Drunken Rant was fab!! + Media and Patriotism
Message-ID: <20030709173145.9123.qmail@web80512.mail.yahoo.com>


My dear Ian Brotherhood,
thanks for your inspiring rant! 
I shout and scream at my radio whenever I hear the
ridiculous statements of those tin pot politicians.
I don't know anybody who supports Bliar (sic).
I don't know anybody who supports this mad war.
I write many letters, send emails, I contact our
politicians. And I stand up and ask questions, so
nobody can say: "I didn't know".
 I have become active, go to many meetings. 
You need to see your fellow friends of peace, because
they don’t get much coverage in the media.
There are many people out there who work for peace and
understanding, with all their hearts.
We all do different things: some of us pray. Some sing
songs for peace, some collect money for charities.
Some begin acting - for peace.
I know of many people who are scared and afraid -
including myself.
It's as if the collective subconsciousness has been
woken by this awful war.
Fragments of memories, of terrible fears, of loss and
pain, are floating to the surface of awareness.
 - My mother begins to remember those unspeakable
things she experienced in the war in central Europe -
as a child. 
But I also know of a little girl in Ireland who was
very scared of this of our -  forthcoming war - until
her mum started tea afternoons with home-made cakes,
and the guests give a little donation, that goes to a
peace group.
The girl can sleep now.
If you or your children are scared make sure that you
become active - What do they like doing?  If they like
painting they might want to paint pictures of what
peace will look like - the colour of peace... If there
is no group around which does things you like - start
one! Not fighting those political idiots might end in
your own depression. This love you feel for your
children and your wife - is the most powerful force -
to create.
All this fear and anger we feel can be channelled into
something positive, into activity for peace.
That is probably the reason why so much wonderful
creative stuff is around right now.
I have seen the most stunning and inspiring
performances here in London. I will never forget
Corrin Redgrave’s 'de profundis'.
It was as if his performance was waking me up, to
something - the vibes were amazing - the audience
connect, people talk to each other afterwards.
I’ll ll never forget Dame Judy Dench singing 'Cabaret'
- for peace  - and I will remember the small
children's chorus, singing excitedly out of tune and
they were so sweet - sweet like children in Iraq they
were singing for.
And yes, art and politics are mixing freely. 
Politicians are trained to abuse words, and the truth.

Artists can show us what politicians want to hide. 
Artists are playful and creative, and thus go beyond
'black and white', beyond 'good and evil'.
Creative people connect between opposites - they
bridge gaps. Creative people speak out, open up a new
ways of discussing things.
Interestingly enough poets are at the forefront of
this peace movement. They touch a different part of
our 'understanding'.
A poem is a much more complex way of expressing
thoughts and feelings, than logic. A good poem can be
like a map of the soul.
There are some good developments (in London):
I have met many middle class people who are hopping
mad about this disgusting war - people who were never
politically active. 
They are out there right now, organising small groups.
Friends meet friends, to read, to discuss things, well
beyond this war.
You will not hear about it. It’s too boring, and thus
not newsworthy. 
But the personal is political - the feminist movement
started like that and changed a lot.
There is a solid antiwar grass-root movement growing, 
quietly, steadily, out there. Right here. Right now.
Dear Ian Brotherhood, thank you for sharing what many
of us felt in dark hours, when the black dogs want to
bite. But of course you would speak out. You are an
artist!
So thanks for saying what I  have felt, and yes, I
also tried to drown my fears and my heartbreak in red
wine. 
hey, but there are always those small things that will
make you smile. I love this one:
“If you think you are too small to be effective, you
have never been in bed with a mosquito.”

for the academics on this list:
What about  doing a session/ study day /  on the use
of the word ‘patriotism’ in Britain? 
Its mystical contents - whatever they are  - seem to
override  morals, AND the ten commandments, AND
ethics, AND individual responsibility. 
Has anybody from Media Studies done some research on
that?

‘Patriotism and me.’ Joe Bloggs speaks out. ‘What
patriotism made me do. Dirty secrets revealed (with
photos)
Or let's do a Deliah Smith brainstorming session here:
RECIPE FOR HOT POT PATRIOTISM:
“To cook a nice pot of patriotism you will need.....”
Love, and best wishes
Sigi


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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Jul  9 21:45:56 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:06 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Recommended
Message-ID: <000601c3465a$b4988040$0a9f87d9@pbncomputer>







Dear List-members,
 
The link contains a short 'book', written in 
1935 by a retired US Marine Corps Major General called Smedley Butler. 
The 'modernity' of the language is quite remarkable, especially if you do a 
simple compare/contrast exercise with some of the language being used by certain 
contemporary journalists and the other usual suspects. It's perhaps a curio more 
than anything else, but it would be nice to think that this man's take on War 
(and you can tell that he knew what he was talking about !) might 
still have relevance almost 70 years after he wrote it -  e.g. 
how does Colin Powell fare when matched against this guy ?
Regards to all,
Ian Brotherhood
 I think you might find this of 
interest!       <A 
href="http://www.rense.com/general38/crl.htm">http://www.rense.com/general38/crl.htm


From kevkiernan at hotmail.com  Thu Jul 10 03:26:12 2003
From: kevkiernan at hotmail.com (Kev Kiernan)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:07 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] {SPAM?} does it matter? (cartoon)
Message-ID: <Sea2-F63ft0EXFaSTGU0003ac8b@hotmail.com>

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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Thu Jul 10 12:23:13 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:07 2004
Subject: [Media-watch]
Message-ID: <001801c346d7$6295c000$afa787d9@pbncomputer>







Blair's breathtaking obstinacy to acknowledge that 
he might've been wrong - even just a wee toty bit wrong - about WMDs has 
become farcical, and begs a question which has not been raised by 
anyone in mainstream media - was the Blair govt subject to some form of 
blackmail by the US and/or the intelligence services of other countries who 
stood to benefit from Iraq's invasion ?
 
Ian Brotherhood


From jamesdoleman at hotmail.com  Thu Jul 10 14:07:30 2003
From: jamesdoleman at hotmail.com (james doleman)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:08 2004
Subject: [Media-watch]
Message-ID: <BAY2-F1570WEc6emTTY000096a8@hotmail.com>


Just the blackmail of Britain splitting from it's most imporatant ally.

Britain has, like America, vast global business interests (BP etc) it does 
not however have the military clout to defend these, hence the requirement 
to stay close to the USA (of which see below)


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,990096,00.html

From: "YvonneMarshall" <Brotherhoods@stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk>
To: <lesley@bbc.co.uk>, <media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk>
Subject: [Media-watch]
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:35:35 +0100

Blair's breathtaking obstinacy to acknowledge that he might've been wrong - 
even just a wee toty bit wrong - about WMDs has become farcical, and begs a 
question which has not been raised by anyone in mainstream media - was the 
Blair govt subject to some form of blackmail by the US and/or the 
intelligence services of other countries who stood to benefit from Iraq's 
invasion ?

Ian Brotherhood
_______________________________________________
Media-watch mailing list
Media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk
http://lists.stir.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/media-watch

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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 11 10:37:23 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:08 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Fairytales + definitions of delusion
In-Reply-To: <001801c346d7$6295c000$afa787d9@pbncomputer>
Message-ID: <20030711092258.89616.qmail@web80505.mail.yahoo.com>


 --- YvonneMarshall
<Brotherhoods@stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk> wrote: >
Blair's breathtaking obstinacy to acknowledge that
> he might've been wrong - even just a wee toty bit
> wrong - about WMDs has become farcical, and begs a
> question which has not been raised by anyone in
> mainstream media - was the Blair govt subject to
> some form of blackmail by the US and/or the
> intelligence services of other countries who stood
> to benefit from Iraq's invasion ?
> 
> Ian Brotherhood
 
Thinking creatively about Ian's question

(1) the first thing I thought of was a fairy tale -
The Emperors New Clothes
Read it and think about politics while you do.
Think about the group of people around a person in
power.
Nice exercise.
(2) the second thing I did was to look at definitions.
Enclosed are two very brief definitions of "delusion" 
(false believe based upon misinterpretation of
reality).
Read them and think about politics and the person in
power.
Scary exercise.
Enjoy!!
Best,Sigi
FROM: 
AN ANALYTICAL VIEW OF DELUSION, BY PAUL FRANCESCHI,
UNI OF CORSICA

"In psychiatry, delusions are classically defined as
abnormal beliefs which satisfy the following criteria:
(i) they are  held with absolute conviction; 
(ii) they are experienced as self-evident truths,
usually of great importance; (iii) they are 
not amenable to reason, or modifiable by experience; 
(iv) their content is often fantastic or at best
inherently unlikely; 
(v) the beliefs are not shared by those of a common
social or cultural background'. 
One traditionally distinguishes in  psychoses between
several types of delusions, among which: delusion of
reference, delusion of influence, delusion of 
control, telepathy-like delusion, delusion of
grandeur, delusion of persecution"

FROM: PSYCHOSIS: LOSING TOUCH WITH REALITY

"delusion:  idiosyncratic belief that is out of touch
with reality, resistant to logic and evidence that
would contradict the delusion; not part of a cultural
belief system. 
(...)
grandiose - drastically exaggerated sense of
self-importance; may have religious, somatic, or other
theme; also known as delusions of grandeur.  The
grandiose individual might believe there is something
incredibly important about him/herself (e.g., only his
or her fingernail clippings can repel the Martian
invasion) or that he or she is someone very important
(e.g., the secret heir to the throne of England; the
President's long lost sister; or a religious figure
like Christ or Buddha). "

The links to the articles:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:p1VeDBYTeqIJ:cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002312/00/An_Analytic_View_of_Delusion.pdf+Definition+of+delusion+of+grandeur+psychology&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://www.hsu.edu/faculty/langlet/lectures/Abnormal/psychosis.html 

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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Sat Jul 12 13:15:47 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:09 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Recommended
Message-ID: <000601c3486f$d1383f80$dde287d9@pbncomputer>







Congressman Ron Paul's address to the House of 
Representatives. A long read tracing the history of the US Neo-cons, how they're 
influenced by Leo Strauss, Machiavelli etc.
Regards,
Ian BrotherhoodI think you might find 
this of interest!       <A 
href="http://www.rense.com/general38/neoc.htm">http://www.rense.com/general38/neoc.htm


From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Sun Jul 13 00:23:56 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:10 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] ei BBC Transcript of Israel's Secret Weapon (part 1)
Message-ID: <000901c348cc$63406a40$88dd87d9@pbncomputer>







Dear List-members,
Link is attached for those who have not seen the 
'controversial' film - also interesting to consider why the Israeli Govt's 
blackballing of BBC has not been given appropriate coverage (esp by the BBC 
!)
Regards,
Ian Brotherhood  <A 
href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1665.shtml">http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1665.shtml
Attachment:
ei BBC Transcript of Israel's Secret Weapon (part 1).url
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From johnmeed at britishlibrary.net  Sun Jul 13 12:52:14 2003
From: johnmeed at britishlibrary.net (John Meed)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:10 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Light relief
Message-ID: <BB3705AF.12BC%johnmeed@britishlibrary.net>


If you feel like some light relief in your internet searching, then go to
Google and type in Weapons of Mass Destruction. Click on "I'm feeling Lucky"
and read the error message. It's a moment of welcome light relief!!

John





From David.Crouch at emap.com  Mon Jul 14 12:14:36 2003
From: David.Crouch at emap.com (David Crouch)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:11 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] European Social Forum
Message-ID: <D323089DC02ED311A19F00508B2E1AAA06D281C8@healthmail01.emap.com>

Hi media people

In received an invite from a French media-watch-type outfit to talk about
setting up seminars and workshops at the European Social Forum in Paris, Nov
12-15 (attached), which I thought you might be interested in.

Media Workers Against the War is discussing a proposal for something on the
media and the war, and on organising media workers. 

Would be great to have your input/suggestions. Time is short, I believe --
all the proposals are supposed to be in by the end of this month.

Dave
Media Workers Against the War

 <<Acrimed version anglaise.doc>> 



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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 18 09:07:50 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:13 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] LA WEEKLY - exciting statistics! (Honestly)
Message-ID: <20030718080206.84489.qmail@web80504.mail.yahoo.com>


Hello, dear Media Watch friends,
here are some exciting statistics from LA Weekly. 
I found the article via Utne Webwatch. i copy their
introduction for the LA Weekly article into this
email.
Best
Sigi

Utne says:
George W. Bush declared the “War on Terrorism” “the
first war of the 21st century” almost like a boy
proudly claims a newfound toy. Soon after followed the
knee-jerk USA PATRIOT Act, a misguided piece of
follow-the-leader legislation ushering in a new era of
human rights violations. Writing for LAWeekly.com,
Christine Pelisek has compiled a mile-long list of
post 9/11 “accomplishments” and statistics facilitated
by the expanded reach the PATRIOT Act granted to
federal offices and the creation of the Homeland
Security department. For example: “Number of al Qaeda
or allied terror suspects arrested by officials since
9/11: 2,700. Number of U.S. citizens indicted by a
federal grand jury for al Qaeda-related activities:
5.” Newfound capacity for the Bush administration to
exploit post-9/11 fear and grief for its own secret
purposes: Priceless.

{Article and link follows:}
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-pelisek2.php
 JULY 4 - 10, 2003 

The List
by Christine Pelisek 
 
(Illustrations by Juan Alvarado)

• Number of al Qaeda or allied terror suspects
arrested by officials since 9/11: 2,700. 

• Number of U.S. citizens indicted by a federal grand
jury for al Qaeda–related activities: 5. 

• Number of immigrants detained after 9/11 — some up
to eight months: 762. 

• Number of people arrested by the LAPD’s
anti-terrorism bureau since 9/11: 75. 

• Number of convicted al Qaeda members: 0. 

• Number of people the Justice Department charged with
terrorism in the first two months of 2003: 56. 

• After a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation, the
number of those cases that were found to have nothing
to do with terrorism: 41. 

• Number of cases that involved Latinos using phony
Social Security numbers: 28. 

• As of April 22, number of passengers in San
Francisco who have been detained for questioning
because of the government’s “no-fly list”: 339. 

• Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, the number
of people secretly detained without charges as
“material witnesses” in the 9/11 attacks: 50. 

• Percentage of those held up to 90 days: 90. 

• Year that many of the USA Patriot Act provisions,
including one that gives the FBI greater authority to
investigate libraries, are set to expire: 2005. 

• As of June 27, number of states that have adopted
measures protesting the USA Patriot Act: 3. 

• As of June 27, number of cities, towns and counties
adopting measures: 129. 

• Number of lawsuits the ACLU is juggling on the
terrorism front: 33. 

• Percentage of librarians who said they “probably”
would defy an agent’s order to see patrons’ records:
16.1. 

• Percentage of librarians who said they “definitely”
would defy an agent’s order to see patrons’ records:
5.5. 

• Number of pages in the USA PATRIOT Act: 340. 

• Number of House co-sponsors of a bill that would
exempt libraries and bookstores from Section 215 of
the USA PATRIOT Act: 122. 

• Number from California: 20. 

• Under the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, the number of
additional crimes that would be punishable by death:
15. 

• Under the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, the number of
days the government could wiretap a suspected
terrorist without a judge’s approval: 15. 

• Number of computer intrusions or hackers
investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice in
2002: 814. 

• Number of computer intrusions or hacker
investigations still pending in the U.S. Department of
Justice in 2002: 1,956. 

• Number of computer intrusion or hacker convictions
or pretrial diversions by the U.S. Department of
Justice in 2002: 101. 

• Number of state and local bomb techs trained in
2002: 882. 

• Number of terrorist cases investigated, both pending
and received, by the U.S. Department of Justice in
2002: 15,455. 

• Number of terrorist cases closed by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2002: 5,533. 

• Number of terrorism-related convictions by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2002: 251. 

• Number of terrorism convictions by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2002: 153. 

• Number of hazardous-duty mobile robots in the LAPD
Bomb Squad: 2. 

• Cost of each: $160,000. 

• Weight: 350 pounds. 

• High-speed capability: 3.5 mph. 

• Number of times deployed in 2003: 0. 

• In a poll of 2,000 Americans conducted by National
Public Radio and others, the percentage who felt it
was more important to protect constitutional rights
than to find every potential terrorist: 44. 

• Percentage who said finding the terrorists was more
important: 47. 

• Percentage who believe the federal government
threatens their own personal rights and freedoms: 32. 

• President Bush’s defense-budget request for 2004:
$380 billion. 

• Amount set aside for missile defense by the U.S.
Senate: $9.1 billion. 

• Amount set aside for developing chemical-and
biological-weapon detection and protection technology:
$181 million.  


 

• Amount set aside for 12 civil-support teams to help
first responders in the event of a chemical,
biological or nuclear attack by terrorists: $88.4
million. 

• Number of major chemical facilities nationwide:
15,000. 

• If attacked, the number of those facilities that
would endanger the lives of a million or more
Americans: 100. 

• Number of the government-appointed Defense Policy
Board members out of 30 who were linked to companies
that have won more than $76 billion in defense
contracts in 2001 and 2002: 9. 

• Requested down payment in 2002 for the Pentagon’s
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agencies’ Total
Information Awareness System (TIPS), a system that
allows the government to study the purchases and
activities of its citizens: $200 million. 

• When it was defunded: March 2003. 

• Percentage of Americans TIPS sought to turn into
snitches before it was dismantled: one in 24. 

• Right after 9/11, percentage of Americans who
favored putting Arabs under “special surveillance”
like that used against Japanese-Americans during World
War II: 32. 

• Percentage who favored “heightened surveillance of
Middle Eastern immigrants”: 66. 

• Number of days Nacer Fathi Mustafa and his father,
both American citizens of Palestinian descent, were
held in a Texas jail after being falsely accused on
September 15, 2001, of altering their passports: 67. 

• Number of countries whose citizens are required to
register with the Bush Administration’s National
Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS): 25. 

• Number of people who have registered across the
country with NSEERS: 138,053. 

• Total number of men and boys who showed up at
immigration offices to register for NSEERS: 82,414. 

• Total number of men and boys detained after
registering for NSEERS: 2,747. 

• Number of those subjected to enforcement actions:
739. 

• Number of those who were considered by the Bureau of
Citizenship and Immigration Services as “criminals”:
130. 

• Number of those held in custody: 114. 

• Total number linked to terrorism: 11. 

• Estimated number of Iranians arrested in Los Angeles
by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
as part of NSEERS: 700. 

• Number of illegal immigrants removed from the United
States in March 2003: 14,137. 

• Number of those considered “criminals” by the Bureau
of Citizenship and Immigration Services: 5,818. 

• Number deported: 3,556. 

• Number deemed “inadmissible”: 10,581. 

• Number of immigration inspections in March 2003 in
the U.S.: 34,941,527. 

• Number of inspections conducted at airports:
5,941,752. 

• Number of inspections conducted at land borders:
27,274,733. 

• Number of inspections conducted at sea: 1,239,029. 

• Number of applications for asylum in March 2003:
4,670. 

• Number of applications for asylum approved: 1,141. 

• Number of applications for asylum denied: 1,252. 

• Country that submitted the most asylum applications:
Indonesia. 

• From January to August 2002, the number of “no
match” letters the Social Security Administration sent
out to employers asking them to explain why names and
numbers of their employees didn’t match: 800,000. 

• Estimated number of immigrant workers who lost their
jobs because of Operation Tarmac raids at airports,
the new citizenship requirements for screeners and
Social Security “no match” letters: 10,000. 

• In L.A., the number of employees out of 150 at Super
Assi Market who lost their jobs after receiving Social
Security Administration “no match” letters in August
2002: 60. 

• Number of applications to surveil suspected
foreign-intelligence and terrorist targets under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) granted
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in
2000: 1,012. 

• Number of applications approved in 2002: 1,228. 

• Number of FISA warrants challenged by federal judges
in 2002: 2. 

• Number of times the FISA court has admonished the
FBI for misrepresenting facts since 9/11: 75. 

• Number of terrorist attacks around the world in
2001: 355. 

• Number of terrorist attacks around the world in
2002: 199. 

• Number of deaths due to terrorist attacks: 725.  


 

• Number of people killed in the terrorist bombing at
the nightclub in Bali: 200. 

• Number of Iraqi civilians killed during the recent
war: 3,240. 

• Number of Afghan civilians killed during the 2001
war: 1,800. 

• New name of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service: Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Services. 

• Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in
2000: 4,465,206. 

• Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in
2001: 4,330,501. 

• Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in
2002: 3,655,193. 

• Number of applicants refused entry at LAX —
excluding people who claimed asylum, parole cases or
those subjected to deferred inspection in 2000: 3,161.


• Number of similar applicants refused entry at LAX in
2001: 3,015. 

• Number of similar applicants refused entry at LAX in
2002: 3,797. 

• Number of Japanese rounded up — most of them U.S.
citizens — on the West Coast during World War II:
120,000. 

• Number of allegedly “subversive” aliens President
Woodrow Wilson’s attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer,
rounded up for deportation during the Palmer raids:
3,000. 

• Number of suspected al Qaeda members the U.S. claims
it has detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: 680. 

• Number of nationalities: 42. 

• Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guantánamo
Bay prisoners: 28. 

• Number of prisoners under monitoring by a
psychiatrist in the newly opened mental ward at
Guantánamo Bay: 24. 

• Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled,
made to wear mittens, surgical masks and ear muffs,
and blindfolded by the use of taped-over ski goggles
during their flight to Guantánamo Bay: 22. 
 



• Amount the NYPD spends per day on security since
9/11: $700,000. 

• Number of full- and part-time airport screeners at
420 U.S. airports: 55,600. 

• Number of screeners Congress has sought to limit the
work force to: 50,000. 

• Number of passenger and baggage screeners employed
by LAX as of June 5, 2003: 2,695. 

• Number of those recently fired for poor performance:
360. 

• Average hourly wage for screeners nationwide: $13 to
$14. 

• Number of health-care workers Bush announced would
be given the first set of shots to protect against an
intentional release of the smallpox virus: 500,000. 

• Number of hospitals nationwide that refused to
participate: 80. 

• In the 90 days after 9/11, the number of anthrax
scares in the L.A. Unified School District: 33. 

• Yearly salary Donald Rumsfeld was making while a
board member of ABB, the engineering company that won
a $200 million contract to provide the design and key
components of two light-water nuclear reactors to
North Korea in 2000: $190,000. 

• Average pay increase of defense-company CEOs from
2001 to 2002: 79 percent. 

• Average pay increase of company CEOs from 2001 to
2002: 6 percent. 

• Pay increase of the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the
country’s largest defense contractor: 400 percent. 

• The distance from which the Pentagon wants to be
able to identify people with its new radar-based
device that identifies people by the way they walk:
500 feet. 

• Amount U.S. government agencies have spent in the
past five years on camera surveillance technology —
with a notable increase in spending proposals after
9/11: $50 million. 

• Percentage funneled toward facial-recognition
programs: 90. 

• Percentage of the time that face-recognition
biometric technology turned up false positives in
matching scans with a database according to a study by
the National Institute for Standards in Technology:
43.  


 

• Cost of the proposed national-identity-card system:
$4 billion. 

• Amount the 9/11 Independent Commission originally
received to explore the causes of the attacks: $3
million. 

• Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study
legalized gambling: $5 million. 

• Amount a commission was given to look into the
Columbia shuttle crash: $50 million. 

• Amount the Bush Presidential Library in College
Station, Texas, received from the family of Saudi
Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz: $1
million. 

• Amount made available by the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security from the 2003 budget to California
to beef up security at local ports: $28,511,178. 

• Amount given to the Los Angeles Harbor Department:
$800,000. 

• Amount given to the city of Long Beach and the Port
of Long Beach: $10 million. 

• Number of communities in Los Angeles County that
took part in weekly vigils to protest the war with
Iraq: 45. 

• Number of people arrested during an anti-war protest
on March 20, which forced the police to close down a
section of Wilshire Boulevard: 14. 

• Number of law-enforcement officers deployed: 600. 

• Number of peaceful demonstrators herded into a trap
and arrested during a September 2002 protest near the
White House: 400. 

• Number of protesters arrested in San Francisco the
day after the Iraq war started: 2,300. 

• Percentage increase in membership of the ACLU since
9/11: 25. 

________________________________________________________________________
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From m.r.priestley at stir.ac.uk  Fri Jul 18 17:06:07 2003
From: m.r.priestley at stir.ac.uk (Mark Priestley)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:14 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Michael Ledeen
Message-ID: <570E2BEE7BC5A34684EE5914FCFC368C043B635C@fillan.stir.ac.uk>







A piece on 
Michael Ledeen (otherwise nown as neo-con nutter), who is close to the Bush 
administration and advocates war as the natural means of solving disputes 
between nations.
 
<A 
href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html">http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html
  
--------
Mark Priestley 
Lecturer in Education <FONT 
face="Comic Sans MS">Institute of Education <FONT 
face="Comic Sans MS">University of Stirling <FONT 
face="Comic Sans MS">Stirling FK9 4LA Tel. 
+44 (0) 1786 466272 Fax +44 (0) 1786 
467633 <FONT 
face="Comic Sans MS">           
Email 
m.r.priestley@stir.ac.uk 
Website <A 
href="http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/">http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/<FONT 
face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000000><A 
href="http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/Staff/priestley.htm" 
target=_blank>
 


From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 18 22:14:57 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:14 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Former weapons inspector David Kelly in the German media
Message-ID: <20030718210922.14519.qmail@web80502.mail.yahoo.com>


Dear Media Watch,
checking the German news re the Dr David Kelly case.
The difference in reporting is: one of the first thing
the German media mentions:
Kelly was a former weapons inspector.

http://www.heute.t-online.de/ZDFheute/artikel/30/0,1367,POL-0-2055902,00.html
“Mysterious death of a critical government advisor -
Ex weapons inspector Kelly (etc)
or look at:
http://rhein-zeitung.de/tick/index.html?km/,2ndPass
“critical weapons inspector dead”
http://rhein-zeitung.de/on/03/07/18/topnews/w/irak-experte.html

This is an excerpt from the above article:
"UN-Inspektor der ersten Kontrollmission im Irak
Kelly war UN-Inspektor der ersten Kontrollmission im
Irak gewesen. Der renommierte Mikrobiologe war
zwischen 1994 und 1997 insgesamt 37 Mal in dem
Golfstaat. Er arbeitete zudem als Berater in einem
Team für das britische Verteidigungsministerium über
die Verbreitung von Massenvernichtungswaffen."

Kelly was Un inspector of the first control mission to
the Iraq.
The renowned microbiologist was between 1994 and 1997
alltogether 37 times in the golf state (...)"

Frankfurter Rundschau:
http://www.fr-aktuell.de/startseite/startseite/?cnt=253449
“Death of the weapons inspector Kelly brings great
problems for goverment”
Regards
Sigi

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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Sat Jul 19 04:07:16 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:15 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 'Tragic price of contempt for free press' passionate article
Message-ID: <20030719025133.50537.qmail@web80509.mail.yahoo.com>


Dear Media Watch friends,
this is a  courageous + passionate article from Prof
Barnett in the Guardian from 18.07.03.
Best,
Sigi
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,7521,1001078,00.html
Tragic price of contempt for free press 

A man may have died as a result of the government's
contempt for one of the cornerstones of democracy - a
free and independent press 

Steven Barnett
Friday July 18, 2003 

One of the fundamental differences between genuine
democracies and totalitarian regimes is a free press. 

For a free press to operate effectively, governments
must accept that their decisions and policies will be
challenged, interrogated, investigated and analysed by
people acting independently and using whatever legal
means are available to them. It can be desperately
uncomfortable, and sometimes even unfair. Very
occasionally, as for Richard Nixon over Watergate, it
can be politically fatal. But the alternative is far
worse.

The case of David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence
weapons expert who ministers "outed" as the source of
Andrew Gilligan's story that the government
exaggerated Iraq's weapons capability, raises crucial
questions about the operation of a free press and the
relationship between government and journalists.

There is no question that Gilligan's report for the
BBC's Today programme was explosive. There is no
question that it made the government's position
uncomfortable - perhaps even untenable - on the
reasons for going to war. And there is no question
that Alastair Campbell, in particular, was apoplectic
about the allegations being made. 

The BBC response was robust, defending not only
Gilligan's journalism, but pointing out a similar and
completely independent report on Newsnight four days
later: its science correspondent Susan Watts also
reported a conversation with "a senior official",
saying that intelligence services came under heavy
political pressure to include evidence that weapons of
mass destruction could be ready for use within 45
minutes.

While the Newsnight story went unchallenged, battle
raged over the authenticity of Gilligan's source.
Then, a name "emerged" from the Ministry of Defence.
Dr Kelly was named by ministers, who insisted that he
came forward voluntarily after "discussions with a
colleague". 

We can speculate on the nature of those discussions,
but one thing is clear. The political pressure to find
a name - to switch from an institutional assault on
the BBC to the identification of a single (and
therefore more vulnerable) individual - was intense.
It was clearly not going to be possible for a
government whose reputation for honesty and integrity
was already in terminal decline to discredit BBC
journalism when the whole of the BBC, from its
chairman downwards, was standing foursquare behind
their journalists. But if they could nail down the
individual source and discredit that there might be
some chance of a respite.

The games-playing that followed was a travesty of the
principles of a free press, and a disgraceful display
of political chicanery. Every politician and every
journalist knows the rules: it is axiomatic to the
operation of a free press that no journalist will ever
name their source, because the vast majority of
information would dry up if there was any risk of
exposure. 

In issues such as defence and security, where sources
are usually in breach of the Official Secrets Act, no
one would talk. Governments would be free to spend
money corruptly, take ill-judged decisions or
implement undemocratic policies without fear of public
scrutiny.

In defence and security matters, more than any other
area of public reporting, the source/journalist
relationship is central to this democratic process of
scrutiny and interrogation. Alastair Campbell, a
journalist, knows that better than anyone. So do
defence secretary Geoff Hoon and prime minister Tony
Blair. 

Their public calls for the BBC to cofirm or deny that
Dr Kelly was their source were not just a disingenuous
attempt to ignore the rules; they were a deliberate,
disgraceful attempt to undermine the foundations of
genuine journalistic inquiry in a desperate pitch to
shore up their own credibility.

In the light of what has happened, BBC journalists may
be asking themselves whether they should have behaved
differently. It is hard to see how. The nature of
their investigation goes to the heart of how a free
press should operate independently and in the public
interest. 

The government, however, cannot be let off the hook.
It has demonstrated a profound contempt for the most
basic conventions governing relationships between
press and politicians. It is possible that, as a
result, a man has died. 

As a price to pay in the battle for political
survival, that is unforgiveable.

· Steven Barnett is professor of communications at the
University of Westminster. 



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From tonysutton at newsdesign.net  Sun Jul 20 16:31:37 2003
From: tonysutton at newsdesign.net (Tony Sutton)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:15 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Re: Media-watch Digest, Vol 5, Issue 7
In-Reply-To: <E19di46-00051h-01@dulnain.stir.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <BB40385C.4265%tonysutton@newsdesign.net>





SUMMER AT COLDTYPE

We're in Summer Slowdown mode at coldtype.net, but still posting a wealth of new stuff each week from our regular columnists. This week's gems include:

* John Pilger, on how the lies of Britain's PM Tony Blair and his chums are still lying to parliament about the sale of arms to countries who really ought not to have them . . . 

* George Monbiot, in a new role of Bilious Old Git, takes a jaundiced look at students at Oxford University' especially the 'social lepers destined to become our lords and masters' at the Oxford Union . . . 

* Antonia Zerbisias looks at the hounding of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, because he is/was Canadian; and how the country's media seems to have almost totally ignored an 800-page report on . . . the Canadian media . . . . and, in her third new column of the week, she criticises the Canadian government for its slow and muted reaction to the death of freelance photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who acquired a broken skull after her arrest on June 23 by secret police in Iran . . . .

* Norman Solomon wonders how long America can continue to tolerate the funding of its political leaders . . . . and, in a second column, remembers how the media attacked a congressman who dared to suggest, eight months ago, that George Bush would try to deceive the public about Iraq. When, he asks, will these pundits apologise to the congressman . . . .?
Click here to go to the NORMAN SOLOMON download page 

* Michael I. Niman, in case you're wondering, is spending his summer in Belize, doing his anthropological studies. Lucky man . . .

Finally, we're pleased to announce that Danny Schechter's book, Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception (you can download a sample chapter at coldtype.net) is about to be published in hardback. More information shortly . . .

COMING SOON ­ MORE BOOKS, ESSAYS & GREAT PHOTOJOURNALISM

Download all these articles, al in pdf format, and much more at http://www.coldtype.net






From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Tue Jul 22 13:18:16 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:16 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Watch Ceefax and teletext, too!
Message-ID: <20030722121052.15973.qmail@web80512.mail.yahoo.com>


Dear Media Watch friends,
the following has bugged me ever since it appeared on
BBC ceefax.
I complained by phone (Tel 08700100222 BBC
information).
I don't know how many complaints about this ceefax
page the BBC received.
They never tell you - or do they?
Anyway - I have just across the handwritten note I
made of the text (once again).
I think it's shocking because it exposes a very
specific frame of mind.
I don't really know what to do with it.
So here it is (sorry about typos and I probably didn't
get all the " "quotation marks).

BBC Ceefax the 8th of May, 2003
The headline in the news index read:
"Asylum tide 'risking social unrest'" 
ceefax page 104:
"MPs condemn failings in Asylum system
increasing numbers of asylum seekers could trigger
social unrest and boost support for extremist parties,
a Commons 
committee has warned.
The Home Affairs committee said the Government set
'unrealistic' 
targets for removing failed asylum seekers.
But is said the deportation system had improved in
recent months.
Home Office minister Beverly Hughes said the
government 'has been acting 
on warning bells' since race riots in 2001"

{Image of tide and flood, no figures or statistics
whatsoever.
Had to think of the 'river of blood speech'.
The race riots from 2001: that were disillusioned
second and third generation poor Asian youth?
Who is responsible for writing the Ceefax pages?}

On the same day  Teletext ITV read as follows:
8th May 2003 at 11.45 hours
page number 303 
MPs warn over asylum numbers
"Spiralling numbers of asylum seekers could overwhelm
Britian and trigger social unrest MPs warned.
A home affairs select committee study said the asylum
issue may already have led to a "political backlash"
as voters turn to extremist parties.
But Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes said the
Government is making "substantial progress" with tough
new legislation and tighter boarder control."

Best wishes
Sigi
 


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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Jul 23 00:15:39 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:18 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] [CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to 9-11 Commission - a must read
Message-ID: <000501c350a8$5ca2b240$15c886d9@pbncomputer>







Dear Lesley Riddoch Show People,
 
I'm fed up hearing Lesley being harangued by lazy 
'experts' and other self-appointed commentators who condemn her every time she 
brings up perfectly reasonable questions. Today it happened repeatedly 
with 'Calum' (whoever he was...) as he tried 
to prevent her raising legitimate queries regarding Dr 
Kelly's death. 
 
The attached is another example of a subject which 
has already been dismissed by many as 'explained' and in need of no further 
investigation.  It has not been explained, but has been used as the 
pretext for a seemingly endless war against an abstract noun i.e. 
'Terrorism'. 
 
'Conspiracy theories' regarding what happened on 
Sep 11th have been circulating on the www since the event, but few have made it 
into mainstream media and the US Govt has consistently thwarted efforts by the 
victims' families to establish an effective inquiry and let it do its work 
freely.  The woman whose testimony I've attached clearly 
has more reason than most to be interested in finding out the truth of what 
really happened on Sep 11th and why her husband is dead. Surely, she and 
the thousands of other bereaved, as well as all those who have died - and are 
still dying - in Afghanistan and Iraq as a direct result of the Sep 11th attacks 
deserve better. That's why I hope the LR Show will consider doing its bit once 
again, perhaps help to shift this crucial matter back up the agenda before 
people forget the questions and the context completely.
 
I don't know if Mindy Kleinberg could be contacted 
for possible interview, but I do hope you will please consider this as a topic 
worthy of attention. 
 
Best regards,
 
Ian Brotherhood 

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<h1>[CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg  to 9/11 Commission - a must read</h1>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>From: Jim Rarey
<li>Subject: [CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg  to 9/11 Commission - a must read
<li>Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 21:15:37 -0800
</ul>
<hr>

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<table width="100%"><tr><td bgcolor="#ffffff" style="background-color: #ffffff; ">-Caveat Lector-



<DIV><A
href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm">http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm</A></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><!---->&nbsp;
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      height=38
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      src="gif00307.gif" width=400
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            <P></P></TD>
          <TD vAlign=center width="100%">
            <DIV class=navText><A title="About the 9/11 Commission"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>About the Commission</FONT></A> | <A
            title="Information about the public hearings"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Hearings</FONT></A> | <A title="Press materials"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/press/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Press</FONT></A> | <A title=Archive
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Archive</FONT></A> | <A title="Contact the Commission"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/contact.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Contact Us</FONT></A> </DIV>
            <H4>First public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist
            Attacks Upon the United States</H4>
            <H4>Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to the<BR>National Commission on
            Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States<BR>March 31, 2003</H4>
            <P>My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 yrs
            old, was killed in the WTC on September 11, 2001. As I testify here
            today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my
            thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in
            armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for
            them to return.
            <P>This war is being fought on two fronts, overseas as well as here
            on our shores; this means that we are all soldiers in this fight
            against terrorism. As the threat of terrorism mounts here in the
            United States, the need to address the failures of September 11 is
            more important than ever. It is an essential part of "lessons
            learned".
            <P>As such, this commission has an extremely important task before
            it. I am here today to ask you, the commissioners, to help us
            understand how this could have happened; help us understand where
            the breakdown was in our nation's defense capabilities.
            <H4>Where were we on the morning of September 11th?</H4>
            <P>On the morning of September 11th my three-year-old son, Sam, and
            I walked Jacob 10, and Lauren, 7 to the bus stop at about 8:40 a.m.
            It was the fourth day of a new school year and you could still feel
            everyone's excitement. It was such a beautiful day that Sam and I
            literally skipped home oblivious to what was happening in NYC.
            <P>At around 8:55 I was confirming play date plans for Sam with a
            friend when she said, "I can't believe what I am watching on TV, a
            plane has just hit the World Trade Center." For some reason it did
            not register with me until a few minutes later when I calmly asked,
            "what building did you say?" "Oh that's Alan's building I have to
            call you back."
            <P>There was no answer when I tried to reach him at the office. By
            now my house started filling with people--his mother, my parents,
            our sisters and friends. The seriousness of the situation was
            beginning to register. We spent the rest of the day calling
            hospitals, and the Red Cross and any place else we could think of to
            see if we could find him.
            <P>I'll never forget thinking all day long, "how am I going to tell
            Jacob and Lauren that their father was missing?"
            <P>They came home to a house filled with people but no Daddy. How
            were they going to be able to wait calmly for his return? What if he
            was really hurt? This was their hero, their king their best friend,
            their father. The thoughts of that day replay over and over in our
            heads always wishing for a different outcome.
            <P>We are trying to learn to live with the pain. We will never
            forget where we were or how we felt on September 11th.
            <P>But where was our government, its agencies, and institutions
            prior to and on the morning of September 11th?
            <H4>The Theory of Luck </H4>
            <P>With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the
            intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time and the
            terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the
            devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong
            in its value. Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once:
            they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate.
            <H4>The SEC</H4>
            <P>The terrorist's lucky streak began the week before September 11th
            with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC, in
            concert with the United States intelligence agencies, has
            sophisticated software programs that are used in "real-time" to
            watch both domestic and overseas markets to seek out trends that may
            indicate a present or future crime. In the week prior to September
            11th both the SEC and U.S. intelligence agencies ignored one major
            stock market indicator, one that could have yielded valuable
            information with regard to the September 11th attacks.
            <P>On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before
            September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United
            Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors
            who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term the
            stock prices of both Airlines would plummet. Never before on the
            Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American
            Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least
            $5 million after the September 11th attacks.
            <P>Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and
            the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.
            <P>Why these aberrant trades were not discovered prior to 9/11? Who
            were the individuals who placed these trades? Have they been
            investigated? Who was responsible for monitoring these activities?
            Have those individuals been held responsible for their inaction?
            <H4>The INS</H4>
            <P>Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped
            the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence
            reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does
            not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to
            their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization
            Service, or INS.
            <P>With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual
            times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been
            unquestionably denied.
            <P>Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed
            males. They were, in short, the "classic over-stay candidates". A
            seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine,
            "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the
            United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances."
            <P>Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, "classic overstay
            candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand the
            applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these
            forms are incomplete and incorrect.
            <P>Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply
            "student" failing to then list the name and address of any school or
            institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for
            their stay in the US wrote "myself" and provided no further
            documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in
            the US as simply "hotel" or "California" or "New York". One even
            listed his destination as "no".
            <P>Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of
            the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been
            in the United States on September 11th, 2001.
            <P>Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms
            for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many
            more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country?
            With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn't
            happening?
            <H4>Airline and Airport Security</H4>
            <P>On the morning of September 11th, the terrorists' luck commenced
            with airline and airport security. When the 19 hijackers went to
            purchase their tickets (with cash and/or credit cards) and to
            receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned
            through a screening process. Luckily for those nine terrorists, they
            passed the screening process and were allowed to continue on with
            their mission.
            <P>But, the terrorist's luck didn't end at the ticket counter; it
            also accompanied them through airport security, as well. Because how
            else would the hijackers get specifically contraband items such as
            box-cutters, pepper spray or, according to one FAA executive
            summary, a gun on those planes?
            <P>Finally, sadly for us, years of GAO recommendations to secure
            cockpit doors were ignored making it all too easy for the hijackers
            to gain access to the flight controls and carryout their suicide
            mission.
            <H4>FAA and NORAD</H4>
            <P>Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear,
            comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor
            emergencies to full blown hijackings.
            <P>These "protocols" were in place and were practiced regularly for
            a good reason--with heavily trafficked air space; airliners without
            radio and transponder contact are collisions and/or calamities
            waiting to happen.
            <P>Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the
            FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is
            then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter-jets to
            intercept the errant plane(s). It is a matter of routine procedure
            for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners in order to
            regain contact with the pilot.
            <P>If that weren't protection enough, on September 11th, NEADS (or
            the North East Air Defense System dept of NORAD) was several days
            into a semiannual exercise known as "Vigilant Guardian". This meant
            that our North East Air Defense system was fully staffed. In short,
            key officers were manning the operation battle center, "fighter jets
            were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board."
            <P>Lucky for the terrorists none of this mattered on the morning of
            September 11th.
            <P>Let me illustrate using just flight 11 as an example.
            <P>American Airline Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at
            7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and
            the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20 a.m. Flight 11
            became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated
            that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon
            thereafter, transponder contact was lost - (although planes can
            still be seen on radar - even without their transponders).
            <P>Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American
            Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the
            infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point, it
            would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency.
            <P>Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not
            contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically the fighter
            jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m. -- a full 32 minutes after
            the loss of contact with flight 11.
            <P>Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a
            delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when
            NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our
            Northeast airspace?
            <P>Flight's 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of
            delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays
            that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already
            hit the WTC
            <P>Even more baffling for us is the fact that the fighter jets were
            not scrambled from the closest air force bases. For example, for the
            flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley
            Air Force in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base
            right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly
            unprotected on the morning of September 11th. At 9:41 a.m. one hour
            and 11 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD,
            Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still
            miles away. Why?
            <P>So the hijackers luck had continued. On September 11th both the
            FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures
            .Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been
            questioned? In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did
            not fly at their maximum speed.
            <P>Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum
            speed of engagement, MACH-12, they would have reached NYC and the
            Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the
            hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and
            undoubtedly saved lives.
            <H4>Leadership</H4>
            <H4>Joint Chief Of Staff</H4>
            <P>The acting Joint Chief of staff on Sept 11th was on the morning
            of September 11th, he was having a routine meeting . Acting Joint
            Chief of staff Myers stated that he saw a TV. report about a plane
            hitting the WTC but thought it was a small plane or something like
            that. So, he went ahead with his meeting. "Meanwhile the second
            World Trade Center was hit by another jet. Nobody informed us of
            that," Myers said. By the time he came out of the meeting the
            Pentagon had been hit.
            <P>Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint
            Chief of Staff? Have they been held accountable for their error?
            Surely this represents a breakdown of protocol.
            <H4>Secretary of Defense</H4>
            <P>The Secretary of Defense, was at his desk doing paperwork when
            AA77 crashed into the Pentagon.
            <P>As reported, Secretary Rumsfeld felt the building shake, went
            outside, saw the damage and started helping the injured onto
            stretchers. After aiding the victims, the Secretary then went into
            the 'War Room'.
            <P>How is it possible that the National Military Command Center,
            located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air
            traffic controllers from 8:46 a.m. did not communicate to the
            Secretary of Defense also at the Pentagon about the other hijacked
            planes especially the one headed to Washington? How is that
            Secretary of Defense could have remained at this desk until the
            crash? Whose responsibility is it to relay emergency situations to
            him? Is he then supposed to go to the war room?
            <H4>President</H4>
            <P>At 6:15 a.m. on the morning of 9/11, my husband Alan left for
            work; he drove into New York City, and was at his desk and working
            at his NASDAQ Security Trading position with Cantor Fitzgerald, in
            Tower One of the WTC by 7:30 a.m.
            <P>In contrast, on the morning of September 11, President Bush was
            scheduled to listen to elementary school children read.
            <P>Before the President walked into the classroom NORAD had
            sufficient information that the plane that hit the WTC was hijacked.
            At that time, they also had knowledge that two other commercial
            airliners, in the air, were also hijacked. It would seem that a
            national emergency was in progress.
            <P>Yet President Bush was allowed to enter a classroom full of young
            children and listen to the students read.
            <P>Why didn't the Secret Service inform him of this national
            emergency? When is a President supposed to be notified of everything
            the agencies know? Why was the President permitted by the Secret
            Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school? Was this Secret
            Service protocol?
            <P>In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could
            cost thousands of lives; and it's precisely for this reason that our
            government has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to insure
            that these top officials are among the first to be informed--not the
            last. Where were these individuals who did not properly inform these
            top officials? Where was the breakdown in communication?
            <H4>Was it luck or No Fault Government</H4>
            <P>Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it
            luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck
            when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes
            with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and
            NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national
            emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely
            basis?
            <P>To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this
            repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken
            communication, one cannot still call it luck.
            <P>If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals
            accountable for not doing their jobs properly then how can we ever
            expect for terrorists not to get lucky again?
            <P>And, that is why I am here with all of you today. Because, we
            must find the answers as to what happened that day so as to ensure
            that another September 11th can never happen again.
            <P>Commissioners, I implore you to answer our questions. You are the
            Generals in the terrorism fight on our shores. In answering our
            questions, you have the ability to make this nation a safer place
            and in turn, minimize the damage if there is another terrorist
            attack. And, if there is another attack, the next time, our systems
            will be in place and working and luck will not be an issue.
          <BR></P></TD>
          <TD width=20><IMG height=1 alt=""
            src="gif00305.gif"
        width=20></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD>
    <TD width="1%" bgColor=#d4dced><IMG height=1 alt=""
      src="gif00305.gif" width=1></TD><!---->
    <TD class=sideTable vAlign=top width="23%">
      <P><BR><STRONG>Current News</STRONG>
      <HR noShade SIZE=1>
      The first public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
      Upon the United States will be held March 31 - April 1, 2003 at the U.S.
      Custom House, One Bowling Green, New York City, New York. This hearing is
      open to the media and the public. [<A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/index.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>more</FONT></A>] <BR>
      <P><STRONG>Commission Members</STRONG>
      <HR noShade SIZE=1>
      <A href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_kean.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Thomas H. Kean<BR><EM>Chair</EM></FONT></A> <BR><BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_hamilton.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Lee H. Hamilton<BR><EM>Vice Chair</A></EM> <BR><BR></FONT><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_ben-veniste.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Richard Ben-Veniste</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_cleland.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Max Cleland</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_fielding.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Fred F. Fielding</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_gorelick.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Jamie S. Gorelick</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_gorton.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Slade Gorton</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_lehman.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>John F. Lehman</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_roemer.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Timothy J. Roemer</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_thompson.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>James R. Thompson</FONT></A> <BR>
      <P><STRONG>Executive Director</STRONG>
      <HR noShade SIZE=1>
      <A href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_zelikow.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Philip D. Zelikow</FONT></A>
      <P></P></TD>
    <TD width="1%" bgColor=#d4dced><IMG height=1 alt=""
      src="gif00305.gif" width=1></TD><!----></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!----><!---->
<TABLE class=footer cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=8 width="100%" align=center
border=0>
  <TBODY>
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      States<BR>Tel: 202-331-4060&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<A
      href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"><FONT
      color=#193163>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</FONT></A>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fax:
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From jamesdoleman at hotmail.com  Wed Jul 23 09:57:10 2003
From: jamesdoleman at hotmail.com (james doleman)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:18 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Re "Astroturf"
Message-ID: <BAY2-F19XktM1qjj0aI00000b47@hotmail.com>



Hello all

Something worth looking out for in newspaper letters pages is what our 
American friends call "astroturf" ie creating a fake grassroots campaign.

Yesterdays Glasgow Herad had a number of letters defending Blair, which 
seemed odd, but I recognised one of the names as being a New labour hack I 
knew from my university days.

I did a quick Google search and surprise surprise, three of the 
correspondents were Labour candidates, the Herald printed my letter on the 
subject (see below) and I think it is always something worth checking when 
you see pro-govt letters in the press.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I WAS interested to see the number of letters on July 22 defending Tony 
Blair and Alastair Campbell while attacking the BBC. I noted a number of 
familiar names: there is a Simon Tiernan, who was third in the Labour list 
at the last Scottish Parliament elections, there is a Thomas Docherty, who 
is the Labour candidate for North Tayside, and a John Maxton who stood for 
the Labour Party in Cathcart.

Of course these are common names, and the fact that none of your 
correspondents mentioned their links with the government could mean that we 
are dealing with a totally unconnected group who happen to have the same 
names as these ambitious young Labourites. Perhaps we should be told?

In the US this process is called Astroturf - fake grassroots.

James Doleman, 8a Crown Circus, Glasgow.

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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul 23 15:09:53 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:19 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Crisis of Barrister Blair - Evening Standard, London, 11 July 2003
Message-ID: <20030723140332.21624.qmail@web80509.mail.yahoo.com>


Dear Media Watch friends,
this is an article from the PRINT EDITION of the
Evening Standard (London).
A nice analysis of the present PM's personality.
I promise you it’s a very good read!
(Sorry about typos)
Best wishes
Sigi

Evening Standard Friday 11 July, 2003 (print edition
page 11)
Today the PM makes his case for a third term, just as
the electorate’s trust in him is faltering

by ALISTAIR BEATON (writer of the political satire
Feelgood)

THE CRISIS OF BARRISTER BLAIR

One of the great mysteries of our age is Tony Blair’s
relationship to the truth.
Is our Prime Minister a man who calculatingly misled
the nation in the run-up to the war with Iraq?
Or is he basically an honesty man, a decent bloke,
struggling to act out his Christian principles in the
grubby world of politics, where nobody’s hands can be
entirely clean?

Although a strong case can be made for either view,
they both somehow fail to satisfy.
There is something simplistic about reducing this
complex man to either saint or sinner.
To unravel the mystery that is Blair, we mustn’t
overlook the obvious clues.
The one big, huge, clunking clue that most observers
disregard is Blair's first chosen profession: he is a
lawyer. Trained as a lawyer, he retains the instinct
of a lawyer. Not just a lawyer but a barrister.

In our adversarial system, barristers want outcomes.
To achieve their outcomes, they have to make the best
of the evidence available. Sometimes that evidence
won’t be very strong. That’s all right; with the right
advocacy, the right presentation, the right spin, the
case can still be won, provided the facts are
assembled and emphasised  correctly.
What the case is not about is a forensic search for 
truth. The barrister starts with the conclusion - that
the accused is innocent, or that the accused is guilty
- and argues back from that.

Using this analogy, Blair’s relationship to George W.
Bush can suddenly be seen in a new light. Barrister
Blair is approached by a very prestigious, powerful
and rich American client who’s involved in a dispute
with a bloke in Iraq and has come up with the idea of
a pre-emptive war. Will Barrister Blair accept the
brief? He ponders. 
It’s quite clear that British public opinion doesn’t
much like this American client, so there’s a strong
chance the jury will be unsympathetic. 
What’s more, the case for going to war is not exactly
watertight. Many are expressing the view that without
a second UN resolution such a war would be a clear
breach of international law.
Barrister Blair decides to fly to the United States to
talk with his client (this client is much too powerful
to wish to come and see the barrister).
Barrister Blair finds himself liking the client. Very
different on the surface, they actually share quite a
number attitudes and values.
They are both devout Christians. They both see the
world in simple terms, as a struggle between right and
wrong, good and bad, light and dark. They are both
profoundly ignorant of history.
And although the barrister is undoubtedly brighter
than the client, he’s not actually that bright.
Starry-eyed at the thought of winning this most
prestigious and important of cases, Barrister Blair
accepts his brief.
Confident of his ability to sway others, Barrister
Blair flies home, decides not to say much to any of
his senior colleagues, preferring to share his
thoughts with a tiny group of junior barristers whom
he has personally hired to look after his interests at
all times.
The most important and trusted of these juniors -
purely for the sake of argument, let’s call him
Alastair- goes to a bunch of highly qualified
researchers and asks them to come up with some telling
arguments as to why the bloke in Iraq needs to be
removed from power.
By this stage, many of Barrister Blair’s senior
colleagues are getting thoroughly alarmed. How come a
mere junior is dealing with such important matters?
(If they had known at the time that the final
documentation included chunks of a 12-year-old student
thesis downloaded from the internet, they would have
been even more alarmed.)
Undeterred, Barrister Blair goes into action. It’s not
his job to ask awkward questions about the source of
his material. And anyhow, if the worst come to the
worst, he can always blame the junior for misleading
him.
Barrister Blair proves to be a consummate performer.
He wins his case because his advocacy in
breathtakingly successful. He holds his audience
spellbound with his rhetoric, his passion, his
clarity, his obvious commitment to the truth. It’s
like watching a great actor on the stage. And like any
great actor, he starts to believe in what he is
saying.
This is where method acting meets politics, this is
where the performer has to live the emotions of the
character he’s playing. And Actor Blair has had lots
of practice in method acting. Famously, there was the
trembling emotion of the “people’s princess” speech.
And there was the deeply moving conference speech
following the tragedy of 11 September, when Actor
Blair was damp-eyed with emotion as he called for
action to end poverty and injustice in Africa.

Vicars can be impassioned too, of course. Sometimes
Barrister Blair and Actor Blair drop their guard and
you catch a glimpse of Vicar Blair. Vicar Blair knows
he is right, because God told him so. Vicar Blair is
affronted, genuinely hurt and outraged when he is
accused of being a liar.
Intoxicated by pulpit rhetoric and an intimate
relationship with the Almighty, Vicar Blair is ready
to drop cluster bombs on children if he thinks it is
the right thing to do.
Vicar Blair thinks everything he does will have good
outcomes. This is worrying. There is a growing sense
of unease in the parish.
Put together Barrister Blair, Actor Blair and Vicar
Blair and you get a Prime Minister who is a
self-deceiver, a man who believes in his own goodness,
a warmonger who believes he is a man of peace.
One day soon, the barrister will fail to impress the
jury, the audiences will stop coming to see the actor,
and the parishioners will rise up and get rid of the
vicar.


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From billy.clark at ntlworld.com  Mon Jul 28 14:33:40 2003
From: billy.clark at ntlworld.com (Billy Clark)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:19 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] kelly testimony link
Message-ID: <B071C569-C106-11D7-A136-000393A21DAE@ntlworld.com>


The text of the FAC interview with Dr Kelly is at the link below

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmfaff/uc1025-i/
uc102502.htm

i also noted that Clare Short has started calling Blair a 
"neo-conservative".





From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 31 14:43:50 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:20 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Think Bliar - think delusion: definitions
Message-ID: <20030731130428.82740.qmail@web80504.mail.yahoo.com>



"Non est magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae."
Seneca

delusion (de·lu·sion) (d[schwa]-loo¢zh[schwa]n) [L.
delusio, from de from + ludus a game]  a false belief
that is firmly maintained in spite of incontrovertible
and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary and in
spite of the fact that other members of the culture do
not share the belief.

erotomanic delusion,   a delusional conviction that
some other person, usually of higher status and often
famous, is in love with the individual; it is one of
the subtypes of delusional disorder.

delusion of grandeur,   grandiose delusion,   a
delusion involving an exaggerated concept of one's
importance, power, or knowledge or that one is, or has
a special relationship with, a deity or a famous
person; it is one of the subtypes of delusional
disorder.

All quotes are from: Heath Library at Mercksource
http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_health_library_frame.jspzQzpgzEz/pp/us/cns/cns_hl_dorlands.jspzQzpgzEzzSzppdocszSzuszSzcommonzSzdorlandszSzdorlandzSzdmd_d_07zPzhtm


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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Thu Jul 31 23:49:44 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:48:22 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] David Kelly - Wikipedia
Message-ID: <000501c357b7$e60932a0$13ec87d9@pbncomputer>










 



  
  
     
    <A class=internal title="Main Page" 
      href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Main Page | <A class=internal 
      title=Special:Recentchanges href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges">Recent 
      changes | <A class=internal title="David Kelly" 
      href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Kelly&action=edit">Edit this page 
      | <A class=internal title="David Kelly" 
      href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Kelly&action=history">Page history
      <A class=internal title="David Kelly" 
      href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Kelly&printable=yes">Printable 
      version
    Not logged in <A class=internal 
      title=Special:Userlogin 
      href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=David_Kelly">Log 
      in | <A class=internal title=Wikipedia:Help 
      href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help">Help 
        
  
    Other languages: <A class=external 
      title="de:David Kelly" 
      href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly">Deutsch | <A 
      class=external title="nl:David Kelly" 
      href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly">Nederlands

David Kelly
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 

Dr. David Christopher Kelly (<A class=internal 
title="May 17" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_17">May 17, <A class=internal title=1944 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944">1944 - <A class=internal title="July 17" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_17">July 17, <A class=internal title=2003 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003">2003) was an employee of the <A class=internal 
title="United Kingdom" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom">British <A class=internal 
title="Ministry of Defence" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Defence">Ministry of 
Defence (MoD), and an expert in <A class=internal title="Biological warfare" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare">biological warfare. He had served as a <A 
class=new title="UN weapons inspector" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=UN_weapons_inspector&action=edit">UN weapons 
inspector in Iraq, as a 
member of UNSCOM he had 
visited the country 37 times. 
Born in Wales, he 
received a doctorate in <A class=internal title=Microbiology 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiology">microbiology from <A class=internal 
title="Oxford University" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University">Oxford University. 
In 1984 he joined the civil service, working at <A class=new title="Porton Down" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Porton_Down&action=edit">Porton Down. He moved 
from there to work as an ad hoc advisor to the MoD and the Foreign 
Office. 
Kelly came to prominence in July 2003, in connection with claims that a 
government spin 
doctor had "sexed up" a government dossier on illegal weapons in Iraq 
allegedly in order to increase public support for the <A class=internal 
title="2003 invasion of Iraq" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq">2003 invasion 
of Iraq. (The dossier which Kelly was alleged to have commented upon is 
known as the <A class=internal title="September Dossier" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dossier">September Dossier, and is not the same 
as the <A class=internal title="Dodgy Dossier" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgy_Dossier">Dodgy Dossier, which he was not alleged to 
have been involved with.) 
Kelly was found dead at an area of woodlands near his home on July 18 2003. 
His wrist had been cut and a packet of painkillers was found beside him. The 
police stated that no-one else was suspected of involvement and that the 
evidence indicated that Kelly had committed suicide. 
David Kelly had become a member of the <A class=internal title="Baha'i Faith" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baha%27i_Faith">Baha'i Faith about four years prior to his 
death. Baha'i teachings condemn suicide and discourage a close involvement with 
party politics. Kelly's wife and children are members of the <A class=internal 
title="Church of England" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England">Church of England. 

Timeline 
September 24, 2002 - The British Government releases a 
dossier (the "September Dossier") in which it claims that Iraq could deploy <A 
class=internal title="Weapons of mass destruction" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_mass_destruction">weapons of mass destruction within 
45 minutes of the order being given. 
February 3, 2003 - The British government release a dossier 
entitled Iraq - its infrastructure of concealment, deception and 
intimidation . The dossier is later found to have included whole sections 
from unattributed sources including the postgraduate thesis of a former 
Californian student Ibrahim al-Marashi. The dossier is subsequently dubbed the 
"Dodgy Dossier". 
May 22 - <A class=new title="Andrew Gilligan" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Andrew_Gilligan&action=edit">Andrew Gilligan, 
a BBC journalist, and David 
Kelly meet for lunch in the Victorian Charing Cross Hotel, between Strand and 
the Thames Embankment in London. 
May 29 - Andrew Gilligan claims that a senior MoD official 
told him that the dossier in September was "sexed up" by the government with the 
insertion of the 45-minute claim. Subsequently, a row ensues over just who the 
source was. 
June 1 - The <A class=new title="Mail on Sunday" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Mail_on_Sunday&action=edit">Mail on Sunday 
publish an article by Andrew Gilligan in which he elaborates on his report and 
specifically names the Downing Street press secretary <A class=internal 
title="Alastair Campbell" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Campbell">Alastair Campbell 
as the person responsible for the insertion of the 45-minute claim into the 
September Dossier. 


June 2 - <A class=internal title="BBC TWO" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_TWO">BBC TWO's flagship <A class=new title=Newsnight 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Newsnight&action=edit">Newsnight programme 
broadcasts a report by <A class=new title="Susan Watts" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Susan_Watts&action=edit">Susan Watts also 
quoting an unnamed senior official stating that the government added the 
45-minute claim. It is subsequently revealed that the source was Kelly. In the 
programme, an actor reads the comments supposedly made. They were 

  It was a statement that was made and it just got out of all 
  proportion. They were desperate for information, they were pushing hard for 
  information which could be released. That was one that popped up and it was 
  seized on and it's unfortunate that it was. 


  That's why there is the argument between the intelligence services and 
  the cabinet office - because they picked up on it and once they've picked up 
  on it, you can't pull it back from them.1 
July 8 - David Kelly admits to his seniors at the MoD that 
he had met Gilligan to discuss the dossier, but denies mentioning any 
involvement by Campbell. Later that day the government issue a statement saying 
that a Ministry of Defence official has come forward and admitted meeting Andrew 
Gilligan on May 22. 
July 9 - In a private letter to the BBC, Defence Secretary 
Geoff Hoon 
names Kelly as the official who had spoken to Gilligan. The name is subsequently 
revealed by the MoD's press office to <A class=internal title="The Guardian" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian">The Guardian, the <A class=internal 
title="Financial Times" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Times">Financial Times 
and The 
Times. 
July 15 - Kelly appears before the <A class=internal 
title="British House of Commons" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_House_of_Commons">House of 
Commons Foreign Affairs <A class=new title="Select Committee" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Select_Committee&action=edit">Select 
Committee. He tells them he was not the source of the "sexed up" claim. 
Committee members say they do not believe he was the source of the claim. 
July 17 - Andrew Gilligan appears before the Foreign Affairs 
<A class=new title="Select Committee" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Select_Committee&action=edit">Select Committee 
and is accused by the committee's chairman <A class=internal 
title="Donald Anderson" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Anderson">Donald Anderson of 
"changing his story" and being an "unsatisfactory witness". Meanwhile Kelly's 
family contact police after he fails to return from a walk. Before he had left 
his house, Kelly had sent an <A class=internal title=E-mail 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail">e-mail to a journalist on the <A class=internal 
title="New York Times" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times">New York Times, warning 
of "many dark actors playing games". 
July 18 - Kelly's body is found a few miles from his home. 
The government announces an independent judicial enquiry into the events leading 
up to the death, to be chaired by Lord Hutton. 
July 19 - Police formally confirm the identity of the body, 
and indicate that he died as a result of a wound to the left wrist, in an 
apparent suicide. According to the police, no evidence was found to suggest the 
participation of any other person in the death. An opened packet of co-proxamol, 
a prescription painkiller drug, was found beside the body. 
July 20 - Richard Sambrook, director of news at the BBC, 
reveals that Dr. David Kelly was indeed the source for Gilligan's report of the 
claim that Downing Street had "sexed up" the September Dossier. 
July 22 - The BBC announces that the tape of Susan Watt's 
interview will be supplied to the inquiry into Kelly's death. 

Political fallout 
In the aftermath of Kelly's death, former minister <A class=internal 
title="Glenda Jackson" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenda_Jackson">Glenda Jackson called for 
the resignation of the <A class=internal title="British Prime Minister" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Prime_Minister">British Prime Minister, <A 
class=internal title="Tony Blair" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair">Tony Blair. She 
also suggested on <A class=internal title="Channel 4" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4">Channel 4 News that the Defence Secretary, Geoff 
Hoon, should "consider his position". <A class=new title="Mail on Sunday" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Mail_on_Sunday&action=edit">Mail on Sunday 
reporter, <A class=new title="Jonathan Oliver" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_Oliver&action=edit">Jonathan Oliver, 
asked Blair in a press conference in <A class=internal title=Tokyo 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo">Tokyo whether he had the "blood [of Kelly] on his hands" 
to which Blair did not comment. <A class=internal title="Iain Duncan Smith" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Duncan_Smith">Iain Duncan Smith and <A class=internal 
title="Charles Kennedy" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kennedy">Charles Kennedy, 
leaders of Britain's main opposition parties, called for Parliament to be 
recalled to debate the issue. 
After the BBC's confirmation that Kelly was the source, it was forced to 
defend its reporting of what he had said, since Kelly himself had claimed that 
he could not have been the main source since he had not said what Gilligan had 
reported. Andrew Gilligan's own report is widely descibed as 'sexed up' by other 
sections of the media. The BBC continues to claim that his reporting has been 
accurate. It also revealed that Kelly's briefing to a Newsnight journalist had 
been taped and that it was considering making that tape available to Lord 
Hutton. 
Peter 
Mandelson, a former Blair minister and spin doctor, described Andrew 
Gilligan as a "loose cannon", the continued support of the [BBC] governors as a 
"crass error" and said that it needs to review its conduct before it suffered 
"further erosion of [its] credibility". 
During a discussion of the Kelly death on Newsnight, one panellist 
suggested that Kelly's suicide was because, under pressure during his 
interrogation before the parliamentary committee, Kelly had in effect lied about 
his comments to Gilligan, having also lied to the Ministry of Defence over his 
interview. The panellist suggested that Kelly feared his "dishonest" comments 
before parliament could come back to haunt him and have repercussions for his 
pension rights. 
<A class=new title="Trevor Kavanagh" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Trevor_Kavanagh&action=edit">Trevor Kavanagh, 
political editor of the pro-Blair The Sun tabloid, which had a long 
history of criticism of the BBC (a possible reason for this being that the BBC - 
as a television operator - is in competition with <A class=internal 
title="Sky Television" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Television">Sky Television, who along 
with The Sun is owned by <A class=internal title="News Corporation" 
href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation">News Corporation), talked of "the death of the 
BBC's priceless reputation for integrity". 
Government spin doctors suggested that Kelly was "outside the loop" and "did 
not have access to intelligence." This however was contradicted by other sources 
who suggested that not merely was Kelly in the loop, he was so influential that 
MI6 regularly sought out his 
opinion on Iraq and other issues. 

Footnote
1 BBC TWO Newsnight report, reported in <A class=internal 
title="The Irish Times" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irish_Times">The Irish Times, <A 
class=internal title="July 24" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_24">24 July <A 
class=internal title=2003 href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003">2003. 



  
  
     
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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Tue Jul  1 22:19:26 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:28 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Breaking News - Information Clearing House
Message-ID: <000001c34018$78979a60$99d487d9@pbncomputer>

Dear List-members,

Media-watch has been quiet again of late. Is that a good sign ? Does it mean the 'war' is over ? I thought long and hard (for, ooooh, a full three minutes) before deciding to submit the link below - curious to hear what thoughts any of you may have on what the writer has to say, and how it relates to UK media coverage of the situation. The BBC may well have done a splendid documentary highlighting Israel's WMD capacity, but wasn't screaming about them from it's globally scattered rooftops in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Cynical ? Well, if we all claimed a quid for each time we've heard Israel and WMD mentioned in the same breath in the past ten years on the Beeb, well, maybe we'd raise enough for a 14-inch pepperoni and a few cans. Maybe.

On an entirely different subject, also curious to know whether any of you are familiar with the so-called 'D-Notice' arrangement whereby the UK Govt can effectively smother mass-media attention on any given topic - is it a 'real' thing or did I just imagine it ? (Like that hallucinogenic trip I experienced a few months back when I could've sworn blind I was at a rally in Glasgow, at the Armadillo it was - I'm not joshing ! - where the biggest demo Glasgow had ever seen told Blair where to put his 'war'. The memory sure does play some fearsome tricks...must've been the last time I stayed off the wagon more than four days running.) 

This D-notice thing : I'm not sure whether or not media-watch is regarded by the powers-that-be as an internet 'newspaper' or journal, whatever,  so I won't refer to the particular case I'm thinking of (in case 'they' come to the house five minutes after me sending this and haul me off by the jarlers to the nearest clink)  but any of you familiar with the shady story of the 100-year moratorium on public release of the papers relating to the Dunblane massacre (and the relevant investigative work by Neil McKay) will know what I'm gibbering about. Seriously though,  looking for any feedback you may have.

One final cry from the wilderness - would any list-member who can comment with confidence regarding speech-patterns and/or body language please enlighten the rest of us as to why Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair are so disturbingly similar in their verbal/physical mannerisms ? Campbell does Blair better than Rory Bremner (or should that be, Blair does Campbell better than Bremner ?) - which of them has been gradually aping the other over the past decade or so, and what should that tell us ?

I'm sure you'll agree that that's enough for now. 
Best regards to all,
Ian Brotherhood


Thought you might find this interesting - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3940.htm
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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul  2 19:26:56 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:29 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] NYT - A dark jail for Qaeda suspects
Message-ID: <20030702182656.61435.qmail@web80503.mail.yahoo.com>

Hi there, dear Media watch people,
I see that we can also send in older articles.
This one is from 10th March 2003 from the NYT and I
find it very disturbing. It's about the treatment of
prisoners, but it's the mindset of the people in
charge which I personally find worse. 
It feels like a witch hunt, the same madness,
narrowmindedness and arrogance is there.
And I wonder where our justice goes - people will
confess to anything. For heavens sake, we burned 
witches in the middle ages because women confessed
that they were riding on broom sticks.
AI said clearly that this is torture.
Best wishes
Sigi

http://www.iht.com/articles/89194.html
?	
Copyright ? 2002 The International Herald Tribune |
www.iht.com
A dark jail for Qaeda suspects
Don Van Natta/NYT New York Times
Monday, March 10, 2003 Captives are deprived of sleep
and sometimes chilled
?
CAIRO This article was reported by Raymond Bonner, Don
Van Natta Jr. and Amy Waldman and written by Van
Natta. The New York Times
The capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed provides the
American authorities with their best opportunity yet
to prevent attacks by Al Qaeda and track down Osama
bin Laden. But the detention also presents a tactical
and moral challenge when it comes to the interrogation
techniques used to obtain vital information.
Senior American officials said physical torture would
not be used against Mohammed, regarded as the
operations chief of Al Qaeda and mastermind of the
Sept. 11 attacks.
They said his interrogation would rely on what they
consider acceptable techniques like sleep and light
deprivation and the temporary withholding of food,
water, access to sunlight and medical attention.
American officials acknowledged that such techniques
were recently applied as part of the interrogation of
Abu Zubaydah, the highest-ranking Al Qaeda operative
in custody until the capture of Mohammed on March 1.
Painkillers were withheld from Zubaydah, who was shot
several times during his capture.
But the urgency of obtaining information about
potential attacks and the opaque nature of the way
interrogations are carried out can blur the line
between accepted and unaccepted actions, several
American officials said.
Routine techniques include covering suspects' heads
with black hoods for hours at a time and forcing them
to stand or kneel in uncomfortable positions in
extreme cold or heat, American and other officials
familiar with interrogations said. Questioners may
also feign friendship and respect to elicit
information.
In some cases, American officials said, women are used
as interrogators to try to humiliate men unaccustomed
to dealing with women in positions of authority.
Interrogations of important Al Qaeda operatives like
Mohammed occur at isolated locations intentionally
outside the jurisdiction of American law. Some places
have been kept secret, but American officials
acknowledged that the CIA has interrogation centers at
the U.S. air base at Bagram in Afghanistan and at a
base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Al Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi Binalshibh, a
suspect in the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks, were
initially taken to a secret CIA installation in
Thailand but have since been moved, American officials
said.
Intelligence officials also acknowledged that some
suspects had been turned over to security services in
countries known to employ torture. There have also
been isolated, if persistent, reports of beatings in
some American-operated centers. American military
officials in Afghanistan are investigating the deaths
of two prisoners at Bagram in December.
American officials have guarded the interrogation
results. But George Tenet, the director of central
intelligence, said in December that suspects
interrogated overseas had produced important
information.
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld have said that American techniques
adhere to international accords that ban the use of
torture and that "all appropriate measures" are
employed in interrogations.
Rights advocates and lawyers for prisoners' rights
have accused the United States of quietly embracing
torture as an acceptable means of getting information
in the global anti-terrorism campaign.
"They don't have a policy on torture," said Holly
Burkhalter, the U.S. director of Physicians for Human
Rights, one of five groups pressing the Pentagon for
assurances that detainees are not being tortured.
"There is no specific policy that eschews torture."
Critics also assert that transferring Al Qaeda
suspects to countries where torture is believed to be
common - like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia -
violates American law and the 1984 international
convention against torture, which bans such transfers.
Some American and other officials subscribe to a view,
held by a number of outside experts, that physical
coercion is largely ineffective. The officials say the
most effective interrogation methods involve a mix of
psychological disorientation, physical deprivation and
ingratiating acts, all of which can take weeks or
months.
"Pain alone will often make people numb and
unresponsive," said Magnus Ranstorp, deputy director
of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political
Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland. "You
have to engage people to get into their minds and
learn what is there."
About 3,000 Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been
detained since the autumn of 2001. Some have since
been freed. The largest known group, about 650, is
being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. American officials
said the detainees at Guantanamo and similar
military-run centers were not regarded as having
valuable information.
Senior Al Qaeda members, however, are interrogated by
specially trained CIA officers and interpreters. FBI
agents submit questions but do not generally take
part, American officials said.
Omar Faruq, a confidant of bin Laden's and one of Al
Qaeda's senior operatives in Southeast Asia, was
captured last June by Indonesian agents acting on a
tip from the CIA. Agents familiar with the case said a
black hood was dropped over his head and he was loaded
onto a CIA aircraft.
When he arrived at his destination several hours
later, the hood was removed. On the wall in front of
him were the seals of the New York City Police and
Fire Departments, a Western official said.
It was, said a former senior CIA officer who took part
in similar sessions, a mind game called false flag,
intended to leave the captive disoriented, isolated
and vulnerable. Sometimes the decor is faked to make
it seem as though the suspect has been taken to a
country with a reputation for brutal interrogation.
In this case, officials said, Faruq was in the CIA
interrogation center at the Bagram air base. American
officials were convinced that he knew a lot about
pending attacks and the Al Qaeda network in Southeast
Asia, which bin Laden sent him to set up in 1998. The
details of the interrogation are unknown, though one
intelligence official briefed on the sessions said
Faruq initially had provided useless scraps of
information.
What is known is that the questioning was prolonged,
extending day and night for weeks. It is likely,
experts say, that the proceedings followed a pattern,
with Faruq left naked most of the time, his hands and
feet bound. While international law requires prisoners
to be allowed eight hours' sleep a day, interrogators
do not necessarily let them sleep for eight
consecutive hours.
Faruq may also have been hooked up to sensors, then
asked questions to which interrogators knew the
answers, so they could gauge his truthfulness,
officials said.
The Western intelligence official described Faruq's
interrogation as "not quite torture, but about as
close as you can get."
Over a three-month period, the official said, the
suspect was fed very little, while being subjected to
sleep and light deprivation, prolonged isolation and
room temperatures that varied from 100 degrees to 10
degrees Fahrenheit (38 to -12 centigrade). In the end
he began to cooperate.
Faruq began to tell of plans to drive explosives-laden
trucks into American diplomatic centers. A day later,
embassies in Indonesia and more than a dozen other
countries in Southeast Asia were closed, officials
said. He also provided detailed information about
people involved in those operations and other plots,
writing out lengthy descriptions. He held out longer
than Zubaydah, who American officials said began to
cooperate after two months of interrogation.
Breaking Mohammed may prove tougher because he is a
hardened veteran, experts said.
The secret CIA center at Bagram where Faruq probably
remains is near the two-story detention center where
lower-level suspects are being held. Both sites are
off limits, even to most military personnel. The only
descriptions of life inside have come from released
detainees.
American officials at the base say that all detainees
are treated according to international law and are
held under humane conditions. Still, the Americans
expressed reluctance to describe details of the
conditions because, as Colonel Roger King, spokesman
for the American-led force in Afghanistan, put it:
"Every detail we give you about how we run the
facility provides information to the enemy about how
to be more successful in resisting if captured."
But he did provide some information that both
complemented and contradicted the descriptions given
by former detainees.
In a typical prison, where punishment is the aim,
routine governs life. At Bagram, where eliciting
information is the goal, the opposite is true.
Disorientation is a tool of interrogation and
therefore a way of life. To that end, the building -
an unremarkable hangar - is lighted 24 hours a day,
making sleep almost impossible, said Mohammed Shah, an
Afghan farmer who was held there for 18 days.
King said it was legitimate to use lights, noise and
vision restriction, and to alter, without warning, the
time between meals, to blur a detainee's sense of
time. He said sleep deprivation was "probably within
the lexicon."
Prisoners are watched, moved and, according to some,
manhandled by military police officials. Most
detainees live on the hangar's bottom floor, a large
area divided with wire mesh into group cells holding 8
to 10 prisoners each. Some are kept on the top floor
in isolation cells.
Former detainees have given disparate accounts of
their treatment, with the harshest tales, predictably,
emerging from the isolation cells. Those who have
probably been subjected to the most thorough
interrogations, and the greatest duress, have probably
not been released.
King said that an American military pathologist had
determined that the deaths of two prisoners in
December were homicides and that the circumstances
were still under investigation.
Two former prisoners said they had been forced to
stand with their hands chained to the ceiling and
their feet shackled in the isolation cells. One said
he was kept naked except when he was taken to
interrogation room or the bathroom. Shah, who was
never in an isolation cell, said neither his hands nor
feet were ever tied, but that he had seen prisoners
with chains around their ankles.
King said that the building was heated and that the
prisoners were fed a balanced diet under which most
gained weight. Shah said he had received plentiful
food - bread, biscuits, rice and meat - three times a
day. The center holds fewer than 100 people, so
detainees are regularly released or transported
elsewhere to make room for more. Most probably spend
two to three months there, King said.
Shah said his interrogators used the threat of moving
him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to try to force
cooperation, warning him conditions there would not be
as pleasant. In the prison there, U.S. military
officials said, the population, now relatively steady
at about 650, was sorted into varying categories of
dangerousness, a change from the early days when
prisoners were treated equally, each isolated in an
individual cell.
This month the military command opened a new
medium-security section called Camp Four where
selected prisoners live in dormitory-style housing,
congregate, shower regularly, play board games and are
able to write more frequent letters to family members.
About 20 prisoners moved in last week, and when
construction is completed as many as 200 prisoners
could be housed there.
Still, there are signs of deep psychological distress
among the prison population. There have been 20
reported suicide attempts involving the prisoners, an
extraordinarily high number compared with other prison
populations, said Dr. Terry Kupers, an Oakland
psychiatrist who is an authority on mental health in
prisons. Another suicide attempt took place Friday,
The Associated Press reported Sunday.
Except for those promoted to Camp Four, the regime for
most prisoners has been isolation in single cells.
They are permitted out of the cells twice a week, for
15 minutes each time, to shower and exercise in the
yard. They are not permitted to speak to others.
Lieutenant Commander Barbara Burfeind, a Pentagon
spokeswoman, said guards were trained to recognize
signs of deep depression and had managed to prevent
any suicides.
Far less is known about the conditions for the
suspected Al Qaeda members who have been turned over
to other governments, either after the United States
finished with them or as part of the interrogation
procedure. Even the numbers and locations are a
mystery. American and foreign intelligence officials
have acknowledged that suspects have been sent to
Jordan, Syria and Egypt. In addition, Moroccan
intelligence officials have questioned suspects and
shared information with their American counterparts.
In one case in Morocco, lawyers for three Saudis and
seven Moroccans accused of plotting to blow up
American and British ships in the Strait of Gibraltar
last summer said their clients had been tortured.
Moroccan officials denied that physical torture was
used but acknowledged using sleep and light
deprivation and serial teams of interrogators.
"I am allowed to use all means in my possession," a
senior Moroccan intelligence official said. "You have
to fight all his resistance at all levels and show him
that he is wrong, that his ideology is wrong and is
not connected to religion. We break them, yes."
 Copyright ? 2002 The International Herald Tribune



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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Jul  2 22:06:48 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:30 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 
Message-ID: <001001c340dd$dcbc8bc0$8cc887d9@pbncomputer>

Dear Mr Hanrahan,

I've just watched your report, on News 24, regarding the return of the remains of the 6 British Military Police to RAF Brize Norton this afternoon.

The bodies were returned early afternoon (while our Prime Minister was wrestling with Iain Duncan Smith over the punctuality of trains) -  you covered the ceremony live on News 24. The report I've just watched was broadcast at approx 8.15 p.m. Presumably you had plenty of time to decide what form your finally edited report(s) would take for the evening bulletins. With that in mind, I hope you will take a minute or so to consider this viewer's assessment of your considered, edited, objective commentary on an important event.

I did not tape this evening's report and cannot quote you exactly, but the concluding words of your report were to the effect that  '...there were no prayers...only symbols to express a nation's gratitude and...' 

The emboldened words are, I believe, accurate.

How dare you make such a statement ? 

I watched the repatriation ceremony this afternoon with many conflicting emotions, but 'gratitude' never once arose. Those six men were in Iraq following the orders of a govt which - everyone knows - was acting against the majority of public opinion in pursuing war.  A great many people in this country are capable of supporting our armed forces, but also objecting to their use for illegal ends. Your report this evening made no effort whatever to acknowledge that fact. Put bluntly - those men should not be dead because they should never have been there in the first place.

Was I the only viewer who felt gut-sorry for the families and friends of those men, tried to imagine how painful it would be if my own son was butchered by a mob as a result of being ordered to participate in an illegal invasion ? 

Was I the only viewer who wondered what the relatives and friends of those dead men might have wanted to say to the 'grateful' nation had you and your illustrious colleagues given them the chance ? 

Was I the only viewer who wondered why you neglected to comment on the presence of Mr Geoff Hoon at the ceremony ? I cannot speak for any of the deceased's relatives, but if my boy was being brought back to me in a flag-draped box because a cabal of careerist bastards had decided that the illegal invasion of another country was, in their considered opinion, 'the right thing to do', I know I would have had something to say to him, and I would've wanted the rest of the country to hear it.

The simple, if uncomfortable fact that no solid justification for the invasion has yet surfaced should have found its way into your summary of today's event. It is understandable that no such observations were made during live transmission of the ceremony, but any considered, objective overview of the event (e.g. the edited news packages for evening broadcast) should at least have attempted to place the sombre occasion in a fuller context which acknowledges the deep and general disquiet over this avoidable conflict. 

By what authority do you take it upon yourself to assume that an entire nation is 'grateful' that six outnumbered men were summarily executed by desperate people who, quite understandably, viewed them as aggressive invaders ? Does anyone review your scripts before you commit them to tape ? Did you honestly believe that such a contentious comment would not immediately draw reaction such as this ? 

To your credit, you did allude to the possibility that there may be more such ceremonies. Following the tough-talk from Jack 'Rambo' Straw today, there surely will be.  Given that you made much of the deceased being accorded 'equal dignity' upon their return, I hope that you will be present to issue further paeans on the nation's behalf as you cover the solemn repatriation of each and every UK citizen who is brought back from Iraq as a result of this unjustifiable aggression.

I'm sure thisis not the only notice of complaint you will et regarding your day's work, and hopefully you will view them collectively in due course, be able to calmly assess what you did. Yes, it sounded good, it was tear-jerking stuff.  But you are not a poet. 

You are a journalist.

So please, in future, as the bodies are being loaded into hearses, be more mindful of those who do not feel 'gratitude' so much as a deep and burning anger that so many lives, Iraqi and American as well as British, have been horribly wasted by this disgusting 'war'. British people from all walks of life took to the streets in millions to demonstrate fear and loathing of what Blair and his cohorts were doing - perhaps we always knew that they would do it anyway, but now, today, when we have every right to say, 'we told you so', the very least we can expect is that the BBC will not succumb to mindless heartstring-tugging jingoism.

Mr Hanrahan, you are a Senior Correspondent. Right now, when the BBC needs all the public support it can get, your platitudinous and offensive reporting can only provide further ammunition to the corporation's critics. Please do better.

Sincerely,

Ian Brotherhood


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From billy.clark at ntlworld.com  Thu Jul  3 19:08:21 2003
From: billy.clark at ntlworld.com (Billy Clark)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:32 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] NAOMI KLEIN on NGOs
Message-ID: <552288F2-AD81-11D7-9DF2-000393A21DAE@ntlworld.com>

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3875.htm

Bush to NGOs: Watch your mouths

By NAOMI KLEIN

06/20/03: (Globe & Mail) The Bush administration has found its next 
target
for pre-emptive war, but it's not Iran, Syria or North Korea -- not yet,
anyway.

Before launching any new foreign adventures, the Bush gang has some 
homeland
housekeeping to take care of: It is going to sweep up those pesky
non-governmental organizations that are helping to turn world opinion
against U.S. bombs and brands.

The war on NGOs is being fought on two clear fronts. One buys the silence
and complicity of mainstream humanitarian and religious groups by 
offering
lucrative reconstruction contracts. The other marginalizes and 
criminalizes
more independent-minded NGOs by claiming that their work is a threat to
democracy. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is in
charge of handing out the carrots, while the American Enterprise 
Institute,
the most powerful think tank in Washington, D.C., is wielding the sticks.

On May 21 in Washington, Andrew Natsios, the head of USAID, gave a speech
blasting U.S. NGOs for failing to play a role many of them didn't realize
they had been assigned: doing public relations for the U.S. government.
According to InterAction, the network of 160 relief and development NGOs
that hosted the conference, Mr. Natsios was "irritated" that starving and
sick Iraqi and Afghan children didn't realize that their food and 
vaccines
were coming to them courtesy of George W. Bush. From now on, NGOs had to 
do
a better job of linking their humanitarian assistance to U.S. foreign 
policy
and making it clear that they are "an arm of the U.S. government." If 
they
didn't, InterAction reported, "Natsios threatened to personally tear up
their contracts and find new partners."

For aid workers, there are even more strings attached to U.S. dollars. 
USAID
told several NGOs that have been awarded humanitarian contracts that they
cannot speak to the media -- all requests from reporters must go through
Washington. Mary McClymont, CEO of InterAction, calls the demands
"unprecedented," and says, "It looks like the NGOs aren't independent and
can't speak for themselves about what they see and think."

Many humanitarian leaders are shocked to hear their work described as "an
arm" of government; most see themselves as independent (that would be the
"non-governmental" part of the name).

The best NGOs are loyal to their causes, not to countries, and they 
aren't
afraid to blow the whistle on their own governments. Think of M?decins 
sans
fronti?res standing up to the White House and the European Union over 
AIDS
drug patents, or Human Rights Watch's campaign against the death penalty 
in
the United States. Mr. Natsios himself embraced this independence in his
previous job as vice-president of World Vision. During the North Korean
famine, he didn't hesitate to blast his own government for withholding 
food
aid, calling the Clinton administration's response "too slow" and its 
claim
that politics was not a factor "total nonsense."

Don't expect candour like that from the aid groups Mr. Natsios now 
oversees
in Iraq. These days, NGOs are supposed to do nothing more than quietly 
pass
out care packages with a big "brought to you by the U.S.A." logo 
attached --
in public-private partnerships with Bechtel and Halliburton, of course.

That is the message of NGO Watch, an initiative of the American 
Enterprise
Institute and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies,
which takes aim at the growing political influence of the non-profit 
sector.
The stated purpose of the Web site, launched on June 11, is to "bring
clarity and accountability to the burgeoning world of NGOs."

In fact, it is a McCarthyite blacklist, telling tales on any NGO that 
dares
speak against Bush administration policies or in support of international
treaties opposed by the White House.

This bizarre initiative takes as its premise the idea that there is
something sinister about "unelected" groups of citizens getting together 
to
try to influence their government. "The extraordinary growth of advocacy
NGOs in liberal democracies has the potential to undermine the 
sovereignty
of constitutional democracies," the site claims.

Coming from the AEI, this is not without irony. As Raj Patel, policy 
analyst
at the California-based NGO Food First, points out, "The American 
Enterprise
Institute is an NGO itself and it is supported by the most powerful
corporations on the planet. They are accountable only to their board, 
which
includes Motorola, American Express and ExxonMobil." As for influence, 
few
peddle it quite like the AEI, the looniest ideas of which have a way of
becoming Bush administration policy. And no wonder. Richard Perle, member
and former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, is an AEI
fellow, along with Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president; the Bush
administration is crowded with former AEI fellows.

As President Bush said at an AEI dinner in February, "At the American
Enterprise Institute, some of the finest minds in our nation are at work 
on
some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work 
that my
administration has borrowed 20 such minds." In other words, the AEI is 
more
than a think tank; it's Mr. Bush's outsourced brain.

Taken together with Mr. Natsios's statements, this attack on the 
non-profit
sector marks the emergence of a new Bush doctrine: NGOs should be nothing
more than the good-hearted charity wing of the military, silently 
mopping up
after wars and famines. Their job is not to ask how these tragedies could
have been averted, or to advocate for policy solutions. And it is 
certainly
not to join anti-war and fair-trade movements pushing for real political
change.

The control freaks in the White House have really outdone themselves this
time. First they tried to silence governments critical of their foreign
policies by buying them off with aid packages and trade deals. (Last 
month
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said that the United States 
would
only enter into new trade agreements with countries that offered
"co-operation or better on foreign policy and security issues.") Next, 
they
made sure the press didn't ask hard question during the war by trading
journalistic access for editorial control.

Now they are attempting to turn relief workers in Iraq and Afghanistan 
into
publicists for Mr. Bush's Brand U.S.A., to embed them in the Pentagon, 
like
Fox News reporters.

The U.S. government is usually described as "unilateralist," but I don't
think that's quite accurate. The Bush administration may be willing to 
go it
alone, but what it really wants is legions of self-censoring followers, 
from
foreign governments to national journalists and international NGOs.

This is not a lone wolf we are dealing with, it's a sheep-herder. The
question is: Which of the NGOs will play the sheep?

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows.

? Copyright 2003 Globe & Mail
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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul  4 13:20:01 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:32 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] What Do Americans Know? Not Very Much
Message-ID: <20030704122001.3007.qmail@web80505.mail.yahoo.com>


Hello, hello!
Danny Schechter writes about the state of the American
media and what Americans actuallly know.
Story  from 'Newsday' 2 July, 2003.
Best 
Sigi

What Do Americans Know? Not Very Much

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpsch023355487jul02,0,2481098.story
By Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is the editor of the Web site
Mediachannel.org and the author, most recently, of
"Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media
Failed to Cover the War on Iraq
July 2, 2003
Millions of Americans accept what they are told and
think they understand what they see. And what they are
told and what they see is most often news as a
manipulated commodity. But the facts that really count
rarely reach a significant number of the public's ears
or eyes.
Also, most reporters know governments lie, mislead and
deceive.They also know that the press is ostensibly
there to keep an eye on governments, to dissect errors
and omissions by offering more truthful
counter-narratives. That was the role an adversarial
media played during Watergate, during the Vietnam War,
and even, if distastefully, during the Clinton
administration.
Today, our media has abandoned this historic role,
That part of the public that remembers the great
journalists of the past knows it. Even journalistic
greats admit it. Just before his death June 11,
newscaster David Brinkley said of the medium that was
his life. "Television news has become so trivial and
devoid of content as to be little different from
entertainment programming."
But many in the public don't even expect the media to
be honest in its reporting. The Jason Blair affair at
The New York Times was the tip of an iceberg. Major
newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The Washington
Post have, in the past, been humiliated by revelations
that reporters falsified stories. Beyond simple
credibility, today's media system has fused news biz
and show biz.
News understanding (and misunderstanding) is driven
more by impressions and images than information. One
recent Gallup Poll survey reported that 40 percent of
the people believed weapons of mass destruction have
been found in Iraq. An early poll found a similar
percentage saying there was an Iraqi hijacker on 9/11.
In contrast, 44 percent of the public in England,
where the media is more critical of the government,
told the Daily Telegraph's Yougov Poll that they
believe their government and the Bush administration
misled them about the threat from Iraq. At the same
time, a CNN/USA Today Poll found that 56 percent of
Americans said the war was justified if weapons of
mass destruction are never found.
The general absence of comprehensive, thorough
reporting is particularly regrettable with Washington
under the control of an administration that has taken
public relations into the realm of "perception
management." Its corporate-trained communications
specialists have perfected a 24-hour spin machine
while coordinating every official utterance. They've
coined and tested repeatable catch-phrases to mobilize
opinion. They want to ensure that we regurgitate their
simplified phrases, and salute their patriotic stands.
In their world, propaganda is passed off as marketing.
Granted, because of cable television and the Internet,
the number of information sources available to the
public has exploded. But "in-depth" television
reporting is brief and ephemeral and rarely is
retained in the minds of the audience. Cable outlets
serve niche audiences. More diverse Web sites often
have limited constituencies. Weekly and monthly
opinion magazines such as The Nation, the Atlantic
Monthly, The New Yorker or Harper's may report in
genuine depth on issues of consequence but mostly have
relatively small circulations. Many appeal to an elite
segment of the population that thinks it's influential
and numerous, but is neither.
When it comes to newspapers, probably a couple of
million people a day read the nation's best known
daily - The New York Times. They think they are an
influential, important group and they believe they
have all the facts about everything that's going on in
the world. Indeed, for many of them, the Times is the
world. But the Times makes hundreds of errors annually
and its reporting is often influenced by its own
agendas. More importantly, Times readers really are
just a tiny segment of America.
All of the above represents a problem for our
democracy. The most important day in America isn't
Christmas. It's the first Tuesday after the first
Monday in November. There are more than 163 million
voters nationwide. Only a tiny percentage of them
could honestly be described as truly well informed
and, therefore, they don't amount to as much as many
media mavens delude themselves into thinking.
It is context, background and interpretation that give
information meaning. When that is missing, as it often
is, so is understanding. 

Copyright ? 2003, Newsday, Inc. 


________________________________________________________________________
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From ddc at soc.soton.ac.uk  Fri Jul  4 13:24:28 2003
From: ddc at soc.soton.ac.uk (David Cromwell)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:34 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Biased Broadcasting Corporation
Message-ID: <f0431010abb2b21b2b42c@[139.166.245.30]>

Hello,

An interesting, timely and very useful article in today's Guardian 
undermining any misapprehension that the BBC has been 'anti-war'!

best wishes,

David Cromwell

Media Lens
http://www.medialens.org


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biased broadcasting corporation

A survey of the main broadcasters' coverage of the invasion of Iraq 
shows the claim that the BBC was anti-war is the opposite of the truth

Professor Justin Lewis
Friday July 4, 2003
The Guardian

The recent furore about the BBC's coverage of the war in Iraq has 
generated rather more heat than light. But behind the government's 
attack on the BBC lies the serious accusation that the corporation's 
coverage of the conflict was anti-war. This claim goes much further 
than the much publicised attack on Andrew Gilligan - the BBC's 
critics in the government have clearly implied that Gilligan's 
stories are part of a more systematic, institutional bias.

So, is it true? The answer has little to do with the work of 
individual reporters - we know from previous research that people are 
influenced by the general weight of TV coverage rather than by 
particular reports. For this reason, we have conducted a more 
comprehensive survey of the way the four main UK broadcasters - the 
BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky - covered the war. After careful analysis 
of all the main evening news bulletins during the war, we have been 
able to build up a fairly clear picture of the coverage on the 
different channels.

Matthew d'Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph described how "in the eyes 
of exasperated Blairites - the BBC whinged and whined, and did its 
best to sabotage the war effort". But the pattern that emerges from 
our study is very different. For example, we asked which of the four 
channels was most likely to use the British government as a source. 
The answer, it turns out, is the BBC - where the proportion of 
government sources was twice that of ITN and Channel 4 News. The BBC 
was also a little more likely to use British military sources in its 
coverage than the other three channels.

When it comes to reporting the other side, on the other hand, the BBC 
was much more cautious. Sky and Channel 4 were both much more likely 
than the BBC to quote official Iraqi sources. The BBC was also less 
likely than the other three channels to use independent sources like 
the Red Cross - many of whom were critical of the war effort (Channel 
4 used such sources three times more often than the BBC, Sky twice as 
often).

The government's case for war was based partly on the idea that most 
Iraqi people wanted liberation and hence supported the invasion. So 
to what extent did TV news portray the Iraqi people as welcoming US 
and British troops? This turned out to be a dominant theme of the 
coverage: across the news as a whole, the Iraqi people were around 
three times more likely to be portrayed as pro-invasion than 
anti-invasion. How far this represented actual Iraqi public opinion 
we have no way of verifying, but it fits happily with the 
government's version of events. This ratio was remarkably consistent 
across all TV channels - with the exception of Channel 4, where the 
ratio was a little less than two to one.

When it came to reporting the Iraqi casualties - clearly a negative 
for the government's case - we found fewer reports on the BBC than on 
the other three channels. Again, it was Channel 4 which was most 
likely to offer a critical note - 44% of its reports about the Iraqi 
people were about civilian casualties, compared with 30% on Sky, 24% 
on ITN, and only 22% on the BBC.

The picture that emerges from our data is fairly clear: if there was 
a TV channel that was more likely to report information damaging to 
the government's case, it was Channel 4. The BBC, by contrast, was 
often the channel least likely to engage in "whingeing and whining". 
So, for example, when Tony Blair accused the Iraqi regime of 
executing British soldiers - a story Downing Street was later forced 
to retract - the BBC was the only one of the early evening news 
bulletins that failed to examine the lack of evidence to support it, 
or to report the rather embarrassing government retraction the next 
day.

And when it came to the many other stories from military sources that 
turned out to be false, such as the Basra "uprising" or the launching 
of Scud missiles into Kuwait, Channel 4 was the only channel - 
rightly as it turned out - to offer a note of scepticism or caution. 
The BBC, ITN and Sky were, on the whole, much more trusting of US and 
British military sources.

The only finding that does not quite fit this pattern was, 
interestingly, the coverage given to weapons of mass destruction. The 
government was clearly keen to emphasise the danger posed by Iraq's 
alleged chemical or biological weapons, so to what extent did 
broadcasters report speculation hinting at their likely or possible 
use? While this turned out to be a much smaller theme during the war 
than we might have expected beforehand, we found that all four 
channels were much more likely to report speculation that implied 
Iraq might use such weapons than to cast doubt on their possible use.

But in this case, we found a few more reports on the BBC than 
elsewhere which allowed doubt to creep in - whether by reporting that 
such weapons had not been found or by casting doubt on their possible 
use. And yet, even here, the BBC was more than three times more 
likely to suggest that such weapons might be used than to suggest 
they might not. And, as it turned out, the BBC and the other 
broadcasters all placed much too much faith in the plausibility of 
such rumours.

Indeed, far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give 
credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to 
the government in its war coverage. Either way, it is clear that the 
accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or 
sustained analysis.

? Professor Justin Lewis is deputy head of Cardiff University's 
school of journalism

comment@guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003


http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,991007,00.html
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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul  4 16:12:03 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:35 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 2 articles from Haaretz- will Iran be next - soon? 
Message-ID: <20030704151203.75189.qmail@web80509.mail.yahoo.com>

hi there,
enclosed are TWO articles from today's daily 'Haaretz'
 (Israel). I find them very worrying.
The language is familiar: but instead of Iraq the word
Iran is used and described as threat to the world; 
once again we have the 'axil of evil' vocabulary used,

and  weapons of mass destruction (nuclear) are thrown
in as well for good measure
Haven't we heard this one before? 
I am really concerned here.
Best, 
Sigi

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/314484.html

Last Update: 04/07/2003 16:05
New Iranian missile threat worries Israel 
By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz
Service

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Friday he hoped
the International Atomic Energy Agency and
international powers would pressure Iran to allow
weapons inspectors into the country and to sign
additional nonproliferation agreements
guaranteeing that it has no intention to develop
nuclear weapons. 

Shaloms comments come after the
publication in Haaretz that
Iran tested a Shihab-3 missile,
which has a range that can
reach Israel. 

"The radical regime in Iran is
threatening the stability not
only of the state of Israel,
but the European countries

also," Shalom said. "Iran is a danger to the
stability of all the world." 

The launch last week was the most successful so
far of the seven or eight tests of the missile
over the last five years, and has increased
worries in Washington - which spotted the test
with its tracking mechanisms - and in Israel. 

If the assessment proves to be true that the
missile, which was launched from east to west,
had an effective range beyond the
1,300-kilometer red line, meaning the range
from western Iran to Israel, the Iranians could
position the launching pads for the rocket
deeper inside their country. 

The Iranian threat will be one of the subjects
under discussion when Chief of Staff Moshe
Ya'alon visits the Pentagon and U.S. armed
forces bases next week. Ya'alon's itinerary is
supposed to include the Florida headquarters of
two key commands: Centcom and Special
Operations at MacDill air force base. 

More data is now being collected and collated in
the West about the missile test and about the
progress being made in the Iranian missile 
program, which is based on North Korean
missiles. In previous tests, when the rocket
was powered by a North Korean engine, the tests
were successful, but when the engines were
Iranian-made, even with North Korean know-how,
they tended to fail - despite statements by
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shakhmani in 2002
that Iran can "develop everything" and does not
need help from foreign sources like China or
Russia. 

The report of the Shihab-3 test is an incentive
for Israel equipping itself with more Arrow
missiles made by the Israel Aircrafts 
Industries and soon to go into a joint
production process with Boeing. 

Israel is also concerned about the growing ties
between Iran and Libya. Indeed, the Libyan
threat is now the reason for a third Arrow
battery even though the Iraqi threat is gone.
One response to the Libyan threat would be an
Arrow battery mounted on a naval vessel. 

Western experts said that the 16-meter
single-stage Shihab-3, which can carry up to a
ton of explosives in its payload, is not very
accurate, with the probability of hitting
within three kilometers of any target it is
launched at. But it is possible that has been
improved over the past year. In any case, the
missile range already includes Israel, Turkey, 
the Indian subcontinent and the American forces
in the Gulf. Iran has plans for two
longer-range missiles: a Shihab-4, with a
2,000-kilometer range and a Shihab-5, with a
5,500-kilometer range. 

The last Shihab missile test resulted in a Bush
administration statement expressing "serious
concerns" about the Iranian missile project,
which is a "threat to the region and U.S.
interests." 

The next commander of Centcom, Gen. John
Abizaid, who replaces Tommy Franks on Monday,
testified last week to a Senate committee that
"Iran has the largest ballistic missile
inventory in the Central Command region to
include long-range weapons of mass destruction
and delivery systems capable of reaching
deployed U.S. forces in the theater." And he
warned, "Iran's long-term ability to develop
nuclear weapons remains a source of serious
concern." 

He told the committee that "Iran casts a shadow
on security and stability in the Gulf region.
Iran's military is second only to the United
States. U.S. allies in the Gulf acknowledge
Iran's increasingly proactive efforts to soften
its image and appear less hegemonic; however,
Iran's military poses a potential threat to
neighboring countries." 	
The file photo of the Shihab-3 missile. (Reuters)
Related Links
* Analysis / `Axis of evil' stepping up mutual
cooperation 
* Head of Iranian missile project: Our rockets can
reach Israel 
* Iran got nuclear know-how from North Korea 

Last Update: 18/06/2003 02:54
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=304929&contrassID=1
Analysis / `Axis of evil' stepping up mutual
cooperation 
By Ze'ev Schiff

While Iran continues to deny international
suspicions that it is developing nuclear weapons,
U.S. intelligence and other intelligence services
have discovered that Libya is paying large sums of
money to Iran for expert aid to help develop a
mid-range missile. According to the information,
Tehran has been sending a team of ground-to-ground
missile experts to Libya to advance the Benghazi
program. 

The Iranian delegation, most
importantly, reveals the
secret, dangerous connection
among members of the coalition
that U.S. President George W.
Bush refers to as the "axis of
evil." Although the connection
involves only the missile
sphere at this time, it could
develop into the sharing of

nuclear munitions know-how. North Korea
provided Iran with the know-how and assistance
to develop the Shihab-3 missiles and gave Syria
the know-how to develop Scud-D missiles.
Tehran, in turn, has responded to Libya's
requests for help developing mid-range
missiles. 

Tehran is now in the advanced stages of
developing the Shihab-3, which could reach
Israel. However, some say Tehran still needs to
extend the missile's range by 100-300
kilometers in order to cover a large section of
Israel. 

Libya has old Scud missiles with a 300-km range,
and is making a major effort to acquire or
develop longer-range missiles. Tripoli is
examining the possibility with Tehran and is
ready to pay a high price for such assistance. 

Nuclear development is only one of the issues
bothering Washington. Another issue is Iranian
involvement in terrorism. The United States is
convinced that Al Qaida operatives who
organized the group's recent attack in Riyadh
were directly connected to Iran. In addition,
some of the equipment carried by a Hezbollah
officer who was captured on board a ship
heading to Gaza was made in Iran. The equipment
was meant to improve Qassam rockets by helping
them guarantee a more effective explosion. 

Despite signals reaching United States about
Iran's readiness to negotiate with the
administration on various issues, it is clear
to Washington that these are only false
attempts meant to gain time to develop nuclear
weapons and to divert the Americans onto the
diplomatic track, away from tougher measures. 


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From c.haydon at can-online.org.uk  Mon Jul  7 14:54:09 2003
From: c.haydon at can-online.org.uk (Chris Haydon)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:36 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 'War', demos, what next ? a whip-round.
Message-ID: <3F097B81.BD32B901@can-online.org.uk>

Hallo Media-Watchers,

I am leading a project in Southwark which aims
to make media makers out of the Ordinary Citizen.
Seems to me that should help break the hold that
mainstream has over the mass(es). Will take a
while but the prospects in five years are encouraging.
When I think back to starting my career at LWT in
mid-1970s. Closed shop duopoly controlled on the
inside by ACTT. When I applied to join the union
in autumn 1974, the first thing that happened was
they blacked me ! Didn't know who I was, therefore
I was illegal ... bla bla bla. Technology has given
media tools to the Ordinary Citizen, if they don't
own it they can access it. Before the internet is
regulated into asphyxiation (we pray not for some
while), let the people speak.

There appears to be a latent mass of frustration
across the British people over the way Government
handles itself, handles the media, us, its love affair
with hegemony Dubya-style, and so on.

Thing is - what next ? And will people vote ? And
for whom ? And will they speak up in numbers ?
If IDS isn't it, is Charles Kennedy PM-able ?

Isn't that more worrying than knowing to what
degree information is manipulated ... that there may
be no alternative ? Or does Robin Cook lead a charge
from the left resurrecting Old Labour ?

Time for a Knight in shining armour. Preferably
before the other four horsemen get here ... If we all
had a whip-round, what type of democracy would
we go out and buy ?

Chris Haydon
Director
Community TV Trust
www.communitytvtrust.org
020 7701 0878 / 07970 970 715
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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Tue Jul  8 01:20:45 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:37 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] a nuff is a nuff is...
Message-ID: <000c01c344e6$e1aec500$54c486d9@pbncomputer>

Dear List-Members,

THE FOLLOWING IS A DRUNKEN RANT, CONTAINS NO LINKS TO INFORMATIVE SITES, IS UNEDITED AND MAY (no, it does - Ed) CONTAIN LANGUAGE SOME FIND OFFENSIVE !  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!

If today's shenanigans (Foreign Affairs Select Committe Report , Gilligan/Campbell-related cobblers etc etc) are not enough to convince folk here (in Scotland, where we happen, by kismet, to be) that the ball is well and truly on the slates then I don't know what else has to happen before 'ordinary', 'decent' folk walk out of their jobs, tear their clothing off and starting rolling about, uncontrollably wailing that the end is well and truly nigh.

These conniving, calculating bastards, posing as politicians, correspondents, pundits or whatever-other title they can think of to justify one another's existence are telling us, all of us, that Iraq was invaded, it's civilians slaughtered in their thousands, because, at least in part, the 'evidence' used to justify the genocide was, to 'the best of their knowledge', right at the time of going to press. 

That's it. 

And that really, if I might ventiure so bold, that really is enough. 

Prime Minister Blair stood before the Commons and told our MPs and us - all poor wee pathetic 'us' who couldn't have known no better -  with a straight-face, that a document which was 90% plagiarised (i.e. STOLEN), crudely amended and more than a decade out-of-date was 'intelligence' i.e. the PRIME MINISTER, who happens to be a barrister, got up on his trotters and vouched for the authenticity of a document whose origin he had no awareness of ?

Eh ??!!

And then, for the delictation of all, I give you...Mister Jack Straw, all cock-a-hoop, testosterone bolstered,  who claims that the findings exonerate the Govt and sternly ( well, as sternly as a man called 'Straw' can) warns the BBC to issue an apology. Campbell claims the findings exonerate him and warns everyone, including Blair, to fuck off.  The BBC refuses to apologise to anyone and runs a reminder that Mastermind is about to be relaunched. Meanwhile, civilians in Iraq are sweltering in their own filth, watching their children die as they remember the 'good old days' when Saddam was in charge.

Please, please, please, list-members, whoever you are and whatever you do as your 'day' job, don't let this obscenity go unchallenged - this small mailing-list is, in the scheme of things, nothing. It means nothing at all unless you use it to voice your disgust at what is happening. You don't have to have some witty acerbic comment to make, you don't have to have established some illuminating on-line link that the rest of us can chase-up. All you have to do is say that you are, in whatever capacity, utterly sick and tired of being lied to day-in and day-out.

I am a fiction writer. It's not a lucrative living. I make most of my income writing porno novels. It's not enough to keep us away from having to claim State Benefits. No matter - the simple writing of these short messages to media-watch, letters of encouragement to other writers on-line who are trying their best to fight the mass-media complacency here and overseas, particularly in the US - this is the writing that really matters and has the potential to make a difference.  Doesn't matter if it's spelled correctly, doesn't matter if there's a poetic dynamic to the language, doesn't matter if it's written, as this is, with seven pints of cider in one's belly.

Write down your anger and disgust and send it to someone, get it out of your system and know in yourself that you've at least tried to make your voice heard despite the huge forces which prevent it from being aired mainstream. Do it. Do it now. Maybe just drop a line to an old friend, see how s/he feels about it all, cause sure as fate, you'll probably find out that we all feel pretty much the same.

I mentioned I'm a fiction writer. Yeah, and there's plenty of us about these days, trying to do smart new columns for the papers, thinking up the next 'big idea' that'll grab the Beeb high-heid yins or maybe - imagine it !! - the next 'Harry Potter' ?!. 

But there's a great and serious work to be done, one that will never be written and never be read - a great novel which collates the feelings of those many thousands, nay milions of folk whose 'stream of consciousness' will end at a very specific point  i.e that moment when the bomb does finally go off in their area. 

Me and Yvonne have two beautiful children (incidentally, does anyone have children who are not 'beautiful'?) and ever since Sep 11th I've had nightmares about that final fraction of a second when perhaps, just perhaps, I'll realise that it's finally happened and we're about to become part of a radioactive cloud-dust that will circle the Earth for eternity. I clasp my missus and weans close to me, hoping that maybe, just maybe, by some freak of physics, we'll survive. 

Nae chance.

There's a certain selfish romance about that notion, but I'd much prefer that my loved ones get the chance to die a 'natural' death, having long-left me and this honking generation of liars well behind them. That's why I'm pished and still up way past my bedtime and begging you to ask all your friends and pals to start making a noise about these bastards who are running things - they are cowards, and cowards cannot face a real fight.

So, please, fight them.

Warm regards to all,

Ian Brotherhood
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From jamesdoleman at hotmail.com  Wed Jul  9 12:01:19 2003
From: jamesdoleman at hotmail.com (james doleman)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:37 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] The importance of Africa to the USA
Message-ID: <BAY2-F129k3GR89h7wt00004bbc@hotmail.com>



http://new.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/07/06/2349201

_________________________________________________________________
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From JakBonito at aol.com  Wed Jul  9 12:30:20 2003
From: JakBonito at aol.com (JakBonito@aol.com)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:38 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] The Observer Magazine
Message-ID: <17c.1db78b35.2c3d56cc@aol.com>

For those of you out there who haven't seen it, there was an account of the 
human toll of the war in Iraq in last Sunday's Observer (07/07/03).  Titled 
'Iraq: The Human Toll', by Ed Vulliamy, it can be accessed through their website 
at:

<A HREF="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine">http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine</A> 

How do we get people to realise that this wasn't war, but murder  ?
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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul  9 18:31:45 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:39 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Drunken Rant was fab!! + Media and Patriotism
Message-ID: <20030709173145.9123.qmail@web80512.mail.yahoo.com>

My dear Ian Brotherhood,
thanks for your inspiring rant! 
I shout and scream at my radio whenever I hear the
ridiculous statements of those tin pot politicians.
I don't know anybody who supports Bliar (sic).
I don't know anybody who supports this mad war.
I write many letters, send emails, I contact our
politicians. And I stand up and ask questions, so
nobody can say: "I didn't know".
 I have become active, go to many meetings. 
You need to see your fellow friends of peace, because
they don?t get much coverage in the media.
There are many people out there who work for peace and
understanding, with all their hearts.
We all do different things: some of us pray. Some sing
songs for peace, some collect money for charities.
Some begin acting - for peace.
I know of many people who are scared and afraid -
including myself.
It's as if the collective subconsciousness has been
woken by this awful war.
Fragments of memories, of terrible fears, of loss and
pain, are floating to the surface of awareness.
 - My mother begins to remember those unspeakable
things she experienced in the war in central Europe -
as a child. 
But I also know of a little girl in Ireland who was
very scared of this of our -  forthcoming war - until
her mum started tea afternoons with home-made cakes,
and the guests give a little donation, that goes to a
peace group.
The girl can sleep now.
If you or your children are scared make sure that you
become active - What do they like doing?  If they like
painting they might want to paint pictures of what
peace will look like - the colour of peace... If there
is no group around which does things you like - start
one! Not fighting those political idiots might end in
your own depression. This love you feel for your
children and your wife - is the most powerful force -
to create.
All this fear and anger we feel can be channelled into
something positive, into activity for peace.
That is probably the reason why so much wonderful
creative stuff is around right now.
I have seen the most stunning and inspiring
performances here in London. I will never forget
Corrin Redgrave?s 'de profundis'.
It was as if his performance was waking me up, to
something - the vibes were amazing - the audience
connect, people talk to each other afterwards.
I?ll ll never forget Dame Judy Dench singing 'Cabaret'
- for peace  - and I will remember the small
children's chorus, singing excitedly out of tune and
they were so sweet - sweet like children in Iraq they
were singing for.
And yes, art and politics are mixing freely. 
Politicians are trained to abuse words, and the truth.

Artists can show us what politicians want to hide. 
Artists are playful and creative, and thus go beyond
'black and white', beyond 'good and evil'.
Creative people connect between opposites - they
bridge gaps. Creative people speak out, open up a new
ways of discussing things.
Interestingly enough poets are at the forefront of
this peace movement. They touch a different part of
our 'understanding'.
A poem is a much more complex way of expressing
thoughts and feelings, than logic. A good poem can be
like a map of the soul.
There are some good developments (in London):
I have met many middle class people who are hopping
mad about this disgusting war - people who were never
politically active. 
They are out there right now, organising small groups.
Friends meet friends, to read, to discuss things, well
beyond this war.
You will not hear about it. It?s too boring, and thus
not newsworthy. 
But the personal is political - the feminist movement
started like that and changed a lot.
There is a solid antiwar grass-root movement growing, 
quietly, steadily, out there. Right here. Right now.
Dear Ian Brotherhood, thank you for sharing what many
of us felt in dark hours, when the black dogs want to
bite. But of course you would speak out. You are an
artist!
So thanks for saying what I  have felt, and yes, I
also tried to drown my fears and my heartbreak in red
wine. 
hey, but there are always those small things that will
make you smile. I love this one:
?If you think you are too small to be effective, you
have never been in bed with a mosquito.?

for the academics on this list:
What about  doing a session/ study day /  on the use
of the word ?patriotism? in Britain? 
Its mystical contents - whatever they are  - seem to
override  morals, AND the ten commandments, AND
ethics, AND individual responsibility. 
Has anybody from Media Studies done some research on
that?

?Patriotism and me.? Joe Bloggs speaks out. ?What
patriotism made me do. Dirty secrets revealed (with
photos)
Or let's do a Deliah Smith brainstorming session here:
RECIPE FOR HOT POT PATRIOTISM:
?To cook a nice pot of patriotism you will need.....?
Love, and best wishes
Sigi


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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Jul  9 21:43:03 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:40 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Recommended
Message-ID: <000601c3465a$b4988040$0a9f87d9@pbncomputer>

Dear List-members,

The link contains a short 'book', written in 1935 by a retired US Marine Corps Major General called Smedley Butler. The 'modernity' of the language is quite remarkable, especially if you do a simple compare/contrast exercise with some of the language being used by certain contemporary journalists and the other usual suspects. It's perhaps a curio more than anything else, but it would be nice to think that this man's take on War (and you can tell that he knew what he was talking about !) might still have relevance almost 70 years after he wrote it -  e.g. how does Colin Powell fare when matched against this guy ?
Regards to all,
Ian Brotherhood

I think you might find this of interest!       http://www.rense.com/general38/crl.htm
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From kevkiernan at hotmail.com  Thu Jul 10 03:09:35 2003
From: kevkiernan at hotmail.com (Kev Kiernan)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:40 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] {SPAM?} does it matter? (cartoon)
Message-ID: <Sea2-F63ft0EXFaSTGU0003ac8b@hotmail.com>

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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Thu Jul 10 12:35:35 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:41 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 
Message-ID: <001801c346d7$6295c000$afa787d9@pbncomputer>

Blair's breathtaking obstinacy to acknowledge that he might've been wrong - even just a wee toty bit wrong - about WMDs has become farcical, and begs a question which has not been raised by anyone in mainstream media - was the Blair govt subject to some form of blackmail by the US and/or the intelligence services of other countries who stood to benefit from Iraq's invasion ?

Ian Brotherhood
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From jamesdoleman at hotmail.com  Thu Jul 10 13:57:37 2003
From: jamesdoleman at hotmail.com (james doleman)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:41 2004
Subject: [Media-watch]
Message-ID: <BAY2-F1570WEc6emTTY000096a8@hotmail.com>

Just the blackmail of Britain splitting from it's most imporatant ally.

Britain has, like America, vast global business interests (BP etc) it does 
not however have the military clout to defend these, hence the requirement 
to stay close to the USA (of which see below)


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,990096,00.html

From: "YvonneMarshall" <Brotherhoods@stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk>
To: <lesley@bbc.co.uk>, <media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk>
Subject: [Media-watch]
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:35:35 +0100

Blair's breathtaking obstinacy to acknowledge that he might've been wrong - 
even just a wee toty bit wrong - about WMDs has become farcical, and begs a 
question which has not been raised by anyone in mainstream media - was the 
Blair govt subject to some form of blackmail by the US and/or the 
intelligence services of other countries who stood to benefit from Iraq's 
invasion ?

Ian Brotherhood
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Media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk
http://lists.stir.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/media-watch

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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 11 10:22:58 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:42 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Fairytales + definitions of delusion
In-Reply-To: <001801c346d7$6295c000$afa787d9@pbncomputer>
Message-ID: <20030711092258.89616.qmail@web80505.mail.yahoo.com>

 --- YvonneMarshall
<Brotherhoods@stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk> wrote: >
Blair's breathtaking obstinacy to acknowledge that
> he might've been wrong - even just a wee toty bit
> wrong - about WMDs has become farcical, and begs a
> question which has not been raised by anyone in
> mainstream media - was the Blair govt subject to
> some form of blackmail by the US and/or the
> intelligence services of other countries who stood
> to benefit from Iraq's invasion ?
> 
> Ian Brotherhood
 
Thinking creatively about Ian's question

(1) the first thing I thought of was a fairy tale -
The Emperors New Clothes
Read it and think about politics while you do.
Think about the group of people around a person in
power.
Nice exercise.
(2) the second thing I did was to look at definitions.
Enclosed are two very brief definitions of "delusion" 
(false believe based upon misinterpretation of
reality).
Read them and think about politics and the person in
power.
Scary exercise.
Enjoy!!
Best,Sigi
FROM: 
AN ANALYTICAL VIEW OF DELUSION, BY PAUL FRANCESCHI,
UNI OF CORSICA

"In psychiatry, delusions are classically defined as
abnormal beliefs which satisfy the following criteria:
(i) they are  held with absolute conviction; 
(ii) they are experienced as self-evident truths,
usually of great importance; (iii) they are 
not amenable to reason, or modifiable by experience; 
(iv) their content is often fantastic or at best
inherently unlikely; 
(v) the beliefs are not shared by those of a common
social or cultural background'. 
One traditionally distinguishes in  psychoses between
several types of delusions, among which: delusion of
reference, delusion of influence, delusion of 
control, telepathy-like delusion, delusion of
grandeur, delusion of persecution"

FROM: PSYCHOSIS: LOSING TOUCH WITH REALITY

"delusion:? idiosyncratic belief that is out of touch
with reality, resistant to logic and evidence that
would contradict the delusion; not part of a cultural
belief system. 
(...)
grandiose - drastically exaggerated sense of
self-importance; may have religious, somatic, or other
theme; also known as delusions of grandeur.? The
grandiose individual might believe there is something
incredibly important about him/herself (e.g., only his
or her fingernail clippings can repel the Martian
invasion) or that he or she is someone very important
(e.g., the secret heir to the throne of England; the
President's long lost sister; or a religious figure
like Christ or Buddha). "

The links to the articles:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:p1VeDBYTeqIJ:cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002312/00/An_Analytic_View_of_Delusion.pdf+Definition+of+delusion+of+grandeur+psychology&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://www.hsu.edu/faculty/langlet/lectures/Abnormal/psychosis.html 

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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Sat Jul 12 13:19:12 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:42 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Recommended
Message-ID: <000601c3486f$d1383f80$dde287d9@pbncomputer>

Congressman Ron Paul's address to the House of Representatives. A long read tracing the history of the US Neo-cons, how they're influenced by Leo Strauss, Machiavelli etc.
Regards,
Ian Brotherhood
I think you might find this of interest!       http://www.rense.com/general38/neoc.htm
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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Sun Jul 13 00:21:39 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:44 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] ei BBC Transcript of Israel's Secret Weapon (part 1)
Message-ID: <000901c348cc$63406a40$88dd87d9@pbncomputer>

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From johnmeed at britishlibrary.net  Sun Jul 13 12:48:47 2003
From: johnmeed at britishlibrary.net (John Meed)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:44 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Light relief
Message-ID: <BB3705AF.12BC%johnmeed@britishlibrary.net>

If you feel like some light relief in your internet searching, then go to
Google and type in Weapons of Mass Destruction. Click on "I'm feeling Lucky"
and read the error message. It's a moment of welcome light relief!!

John


From David.Crouch at emap.com  Mon Jul 14 12:02:15 2003
From: David.Crouch at emap.com (David Crouch)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:45 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] European Social Forum
Message-ID: <D323089DC02ED311A19F00508B2E1AAA06D281C8@healthmail01.emap.com>

Hi media people

In received an invite from a French media-watch-type outfit to talk about
setting up seminars and workshops at the European Social Forum in Paris, Nov
12-15 (attached), which I thought you might be interested in.

Media Workers Against the War is discussing a proposal for something on the
media and the war, and on organising media workers. 

Would be great to have your input/suggestions. Time is short, I believe --
all the proposals are supposed to be in by the end of this month.

Dave
Media Workers Against the War

 <<Acrimed version anglaise.doc>> 



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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 18 09:02:06 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:47 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] LA WEEKLY - exciting statistics! (Honestly)
Message-ID: <20030718080206.84489.qmail@web80504.mail.yahoo.com>

Hello, dear Media Watch friends,
here are some exciting statistics from LA Weekly. 
I found the article via Utne Webwatch. i copy their
introduction for the LA Weekly article into this
email.
Best
Sigi

Utne says:
George W. Bush declared the ?War on Terrorism? ?the
first war of the 21st century? almost like a boy
proudly claims a newfound toy. Soon after followed the
knee-jerk USA PATRIOT Act, a misguided piece of
follow-the-leader legislation ushering in a new era of
human rights violations. Writing for LAWeekly.com,
Christine Pelisek has compiled a mile-long list of
post 9/11 ?accomplishments? and statistics facilitated
by the expanded reach the PATRIOT Act granted to
federal offices and the creation of the Homeland
Security department. For example: ?Number of al Qaeda
or allied terror suspects arrested by officials since
9/11: 2,700. Number of U.S. citizens indicted by a
federal grand jury for al Qaeda-related activities:
5.? Newfound capacity for the Bush administration to
exploit post-9/11 fear and grief for its own secret
purposes: Priceless.

{Article and link follows:}
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/33/features-pelisek2.php
 JULY 4 - 10, 2003 

The List
by Christine Pelisek 
 
(Illustrations by Juan Alvarado)

? Number of al Qaeda or allied terror suspects
arrested by officials since 9/11: 2,700. 

? Number of U.S. citizens indicted by a federal grand
jury for al Qaeda?related activities: 5. 

? Number of immigrants detained after 9/11 ? some up
to eight months: 762. 

? Number of people arrested by the LAPD?s
anti-terrorism bureau since 9/11: 75. 

? Number of convicted al Qaeda members: 0. 

? Number of people the Justice Department charged with
terrorism in the first two months of 2003: 56. 

? After a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation, the
number of those cases that were found to have nothing
to do with terrorism: 41. 

? Number of cases that involved Latinos using phony
Social Security numbers: 28. 

? As of April 22, number of passengers in San
Francisco who have been detained for questioning
because of the government?s ?no-fly list?: 339. 

? Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, the number
of people secretly detained without charges as
?material witnesses? in the 9/11 attacks: 50. 

? Percentage of those held up to 90 days: 90. 

? Year that many of the USA Patriot Act provisions,
including one that gives the FBI greater authority to
investigate libraries, are set to expire: 2005. 

? As of June 27, number of states that have adopted
measures protesting the USA Patriot Act: 3. 

? As of June 27, number of cities, towns and counties
adopting measures: 129. 

? Number of lawsuits the ACLU is juggling on the
terrorism front: 33. 

? Percentage of librarians who said they ?probably?
would defy an agent?s order to see patrons? records:
16.1. 

? Percentage of librarians who said they ?definitely?
would defy an agent?s order to see patrons? records:
5.5. 

? Number of pages in the USA PATRIOT Act: 340. 

? Number of House co-sponsors of a bill that would
exempt libraries and bookstores from Section 215 of
the USA PATRIOT Act: 122. 

? Number from California: 20. 

? Under the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, the number of
additional crimes that would be punishable by death:
15. 

? Under the proposed USA PATRIOT Act II, the number of
days the government could wiretap a suspected
terrorist without a judge?s approval: 15. 

? Number of computer intrusions or hackers
investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice in
2002: 814. 

? Number of computer intrusions or hacker
investigations still pending in the U.S. Department of
Justice in 2002: 1,956. 

? Number of computer intrusion or hacker convictions
or pretrial diversions by the U.S. Department of
Justice in 2002: 101. 

? Number of state and local bomb techs trained in
2002: 882. 

? Number of terrorist cases investigated, both pending
and received, by the U.S. Department of Justice in
2002: 15,455. 

? Number of terrorist cases closed by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2002: 5,533. 

? Number of terrorism-related convictions by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2002: 251. 

? Number of terrorism convictions by the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2002: 153. 

? Number of hazardous-duty mobile robots in the LAPD
Bomb Squad: 2. 

? Cost of each: $160,000. 

? Weight: 350 pounds. 

? High-speed capability: 3.5 mph. 

? Number of times deployed in 2003: 0. 

? In a poll of 2,000 Americans conducted by National
Public Radio and others, the percentage who felt it
was more important to protect constitutional rights
than to find every potential terrorist: 44. 

? Percentage who said finding the terrorists was more
important: 47. 

? Percentage who believe the federal government
threatens their own personal rights and freedoms: 32. 

? President Bush?s defense-budget request for 2004:
$380 billion. 

? Amount set aside for missile defense by the U.S.
Senate: $9.1 billion. 

? Amount set aside for developing chemical-and
biological-weapon detection and protection technology:
$181 million.  


 

? Amount set aside for 12 civil-support teams to help
first responders in the event of a chemical,
biological or nuclear attack by terrorists: $88.4
million. 

? Number of major chemical facilities nationwide:
15,000. 

? If attacked, the number of those facilities that
would endanger the lives of a million or more
Americans: 100. 

? Number of the government-appointed Defense Policy
Board members out of 30 who were linked to companies
that have won more than $76 billion in defense
contracts in 2001 and 2002: 9. 

? Requested down payment in 2002 for the Pentagon?s
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agencies? Total
Information Awareness System (TIPS), a system that
allows the government to study the purchases and
activities of its citizens: $200 million. 

? When it was defunded: March 2003. 

? Percentage of Americans TIPS sought to turn into
snitches before it was dismantled: one in 24. 

? Right after 9/11, percentage of Americans who
favored putting Arabs under ?special surveillance?
like that used against Japanese-Americans during World
War II: 32. 

? Percentage who favored ?heightened surveillance of
Middle Eastern immigrants?: 66. 

? Number of days Nacer Fathi Mustafa and his father,
both American citizens of Palestinian descent, were
held in a Texas jail after being falsely accused on
September 15, 2001, of altering their passports: 67. 

? Number of countries whose citizens are required to
register with the Bush Administration?s National
Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS): 25. 

? Number of people who have registered across the
country with NSEERS: 138,053. 

? Total number of men and boys who showed up at
immigration offices to register for NSEERS: 82,414. 

? Total number of men and boys detained after
registering for NSEERS: 2,747. 

? Number of those subjected to enforcement actions:
739. 

? Number of those who were considered by the Bureau of
Citizenship and Immigration Services as ?criminals?:
130. 

? Number of those held in custody: 114. 

? Total number linked to terrorism: 11. 

? Estimated number of Iranians arrested in Los Angeles
by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
as part of NSEERS: 700. 

? Number of illegal immigrants removed from the United
States in March 2003: 14,137. 

? Number of those considered ?criminals? by the Bureau
of Citizenship and Immigration Services: 5,818. 

? Number deported: 3,556. 

? Number deemed ?inadmissible?: 10,581. 

? Number of immigration inspections in March 2003 in
the U.S.: 34,941,527. 

? Number of inspections conducted at airports:
5,941,752. 

? Number of inspections conducted at land borders:
27,274,733. 

? Number of inspections conducted at sea: 1,239,029. 

? Number of applications for asylum in March 2003:
4,670. 

? Number of applications for asylum approved: 1,141. 

? Number of applications for asylum denied: 1,252. 

? Country that submitted the most asylum applications:
Indonesia. 

? From January to August 2002, the number of ?no
match? letters the Social Security Administration sent
out to employers asking them to explain why names and
numbers of their employees didn?t match: 800,000. 

? Estimated number of immigrant workers who lost their
jobs because of Operation Tarmac raids at airports,
the new citizenship requirements for screeners and
Social Security ?no match? letters: 10,000. 

? In L.A., the number of employees out of 150 at Super
Assi Market who lost their jobs after receiving Social
Security Administration ?no match? letters in August
2002: 60. 

? Number of applications to surveil suspected
foreign-intelligence and terrorist targets under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) granted
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in
2000: 1,012. 

? Number of applications approved in 2002: 1,228. 

? Number of FISA warrants challenged by federal judges
in 2002: 2. 

? Number of times the FISA court has admonished the
FBI for misrepresenting facts since 9/11: 75. 

? Number of terrorist attacks around the world in
2001: 355. 

? Number of terrorist attacks around the world in
2002: 199. 

? Number of deaths due to terrorist attacks: 725.  


 

? Number of people killed in the terrorist bombing at
the nightclub in Bali: 200. 

? Number of Iraqi civilians killed during the recent
war: 3,240. 

? Number of Afghan civilians killed during the 2001
war: 1,800. 

? New name of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service: Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Services. 

? Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in
2000: 4,465,206. 

? Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in
2001: 4,330,501. 

? Number of foreign nationals inspected at LAX in
2002: 3,655,193. 

? Number of applicants refused entry at LAX ?
excluding people who claimed asylum, parole cases or
those subjected to deferred inspection in 2000: 3,161.


? Number of similar applicants refused entry at LAX in
2001: 3,015. 

? Number of similar applicants refused entry at LAX in
2002: 3,797. 

? Number of Japanese rounded up ? most of them U.S.
citizens ? on the West Coast during World War II:
120,000. 

? Number of allegedly ?subversive? aliens President
Woodrow Wilson?s attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer,
rounded up for deportation during the Palmer raids:
3,000. 

? Number of suspected al Qaeda members the U.S. claims
it has detained at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba: 680. 

? Number of nationalities: 42. 

? Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guant?namo
Bay prisoners: 28. 

? Number of prisoners under monitoring by a
psychiatrist in the newly opened mental ward at
Guant?namo Bay: 24. 

? Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled,
made to wear mittens, surgical masks and ear muffs,
and blindfolded by the use of taped-over ski goggles
during their flight to Guant?namo Bay: 22. 
 



? Amount the NYPD spends per day on security since
9/11: $700,000. 

? Number of full- and part-time airport screeners at
420 U.S. airports: 55,600. 

? Number of screeners Congress has sought to limit the
work force to: 50,000. 

? Number of passenger and baggage screeners employed
by LAX as of June 5, 2003: 2,695. 

? Number of those recently fired for poor performance:
360. 

? Average hourly wage for screeners nationwide: $13 to
$14. 

? Number of health-care workers Bush announced would
be given the first set of shots to protect against an
intentional release of the smallpox virus: 500,000. 

? Number of hospitals nationwide that refused to
participate: 80. 

? In the 90 days after 9/11, the number of anthrax
scares in the L.A. Unified School District: 33. 

? Yearly salary Donald Rumsfeld was making while a
board member of ABB, the engineering company that won
a $200 million contract to provide the design and key
components of two light-water nuclear reactors to
North Korea in 2000: $190,000. 

? Average pay increase of defense-company CEOs from
2001 to 2002: 79 percent. 

? Average pay increase of company CEOs from 2001 to
2002: 6 percent. 

? Pay increase of the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the
country?s largest defense contractor: 400 percent. 

? The distance from which the Pentagon wants to be
able to identify people with its new radar-based
device that identifies people by the way they walk:
500 feet. 

? Amount U.S. government agencies have spent in the
past five years on camera surveillance technology ?
with a notable increase in spending proposals after
9/11: $50 million. 

? Percentage funneled toward facial-recognition
programs: 90. 

? Percentage of the time that face-recognition
biometric technology turned up false positives in
matching scans with a database according to a study by
the National Institute for Standards in Technology:
43.  


 

? Cost of the proposed national-identity-card system:
$4 billion. 

? Amount the 9/11 Independent Commission originally
received to explore the causes of the attacks: $3
million. 

? Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study
legalized gambling: $5 million. 

? Amount a commission was given to look into the
Columbia shuttle crash: $50 million. 

? Amount the Bush Presidential Library in College
Station, Texas, received from the family of Saudi
Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz: $1
million. 

? Amount made available by the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security from the 2003 budget to California
to beef up security at local ports: $28,511,178. 

? Amount given to the Los Angeles Harbor Department:
$800,000. 

? Amount given to the city of Long Beach and the Port
of Long Beach: $10 million. 

? Number of communities in Los Angeles County that
took part in weekly vigils to protest the war with
Iraq: 45. 

? Number of people arrested during an anti-war protest
on March 20, which forced the police to close down a
section of Wilshire Boulevard: 14. 

? Number of law-enforcement officers deployed: 600. 

? Number of peaceful demonstrators herded into a trap
and arrested during a September 2002 protest near the
White House: 400. 

? Number of protesters arrested in San Francisco the
day after the Iraq war started: 2,300. 

? Percentage increase in membership of the ACLU since
9/11: 25. 

________________________________________________________________________
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From m.r.priestley at stir.ac.uk  Fri Jul 18 17:05:33 2003
From: m.r.priestley at stir.ac.uk (Mark Priestley)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:48 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Michael Ledeen
Message-ID: <570E2BEE7BC5A34684EE5914FCFC368C043B635C@fillan.stir.ac.uk>

A piece on Michael Ledeen (otherwise nown as neo-con nutter), who is close
to the Bush administration and advocates war as the natural means of solving
disputes between nations.
 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html> 

  --------

Mark Priestley 
Lecturer in Education 
Institute of Education 
University of Stirling 
Stirling FK9 4LA 
Tel. +44 (0) 1786 466272 
Fax +44 (0) 1786 467633 
           
Email m.r.priestley@stir.ac.uk 
Website http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/ <http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/>
<http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/Staff/priestley.htm> 

 
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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 18 22:09:22 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:49 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 
	Former weapons inspector David Kelly in the German media 
Message-ID: <20030718210922.14519.qmail@web80502.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Media Watch,
checking the German news re the Dr David Kelly case.
The difference in reporting is: one of the first thing
the German media mentions:
Kelly was a former weapons inspector.

http://www.heute.t-online.de/ZDFheute/artikel/30/0,1367,POL-0-2055902,00.html
?Mysterious death of a critical government advisor -
Ex weapons inspector Kelly (etc)
or look at:
http://rhein-zeitung.de/tick/index.html?km/,2ndPass
?critical weapons inspector dead?
http://rhein-zeitung.de/on/03/07/18/topnews/w/irak-experte.html

This is an excerpt from the above article:
"UN-Inspektor der ersten Kontrollmission im Irak
Kelly war UN-Inspektor der ersten Kontrollmission im
Irak gewesen. Der renommierte Mikrobiologe war
zwischen 1994 und 1997 insgesamt 37 Mal in dem
Golfstaat. Er arbeitete zudem als Berater in einem
Team f?r das britische Verteidigungsministerium ?ber
die Verbreitung von Massenvernichtungswaffen."

Kelly was Un inspector of the first control mission to
the Iraq.
The renowned microbiologist was between 1994 and 1997
alltogether 37 times in the golf state (...)"

Frankfurter Rundschau:
http://www.fr-aktuell.de/startseite/startseite/?cnt=253449
?Death of the weapons inspector Kelly brings great
problems for goverment?
Regards
Sigi

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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Sat Jul 19 03:51:33 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:49 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 
	'Tragic price of contempt for free press' passionate article
Message-ID: <20030719025133.50537.qmail@web80509.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Media Watch friends,
this is a  courageous + passionate article from Prof
Barnett in the Guardian from 18.07.03.
Best,
Sigi
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,7521,1001078,00.html
Tragic price of contempt for free press 

A man may have died as a result of the government's
contempt for one of the cornerstones of democracy - a
free and independent press 

Steven Barnett
Friday July 18, 2003 

One of the fundamental differences between genuine
democracies and totalitarian regimes is a free press. 

For a free press to operate effectively, governments
must accept that their decisions and policies will be
challenged, interrogated, investigated and analysed by
people acting independently and using whatever legal
means are available to them. It can be desperately
uncomfortable, and sometimes even unfair. Very
occasionally, as for Richard Nixon over Watergate, it
can be politically fatal. But the alternative is far
worse.

The case of David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence
weapons expert who ministers "outed" as the source of
Andrew Gilligan's story that the government
exaggerated Iraq's weapons capability, raises crucial
questions about the operation of a free press and the
relationship between government and journalists.

There is no question that Gilligan's report for the
BBC's Today programme was explosive. There is no
question that it made the government's position
uncomfortable - perhaps even untenable - on the
reasons for going to war. And there is no question
that Alastair Campbell, in particular, was apoplectic
about the allegations being made. 

The BBC response was robust, defending not only
Gilligan's journalism, but pointing out a similar and
completely independent report on Newsnight four days
later: its science correspondent Susan Watts also
reported a conversation with "a senior official",
saying that intelligence services came under heavy
political pressure to include evidence that weapons of
mass destruction could be ready for use within 45
minutes.

While the Newsnight story went unchallenged, battle
raged over the authenticity of Gilligan's source.
Then, a name "emerged" from the Ministry of Defence.
Dr Kelly was named by ministers, who insisted that he
came forward voluntarily after "discussions with a
colleague". 

We can speculate on the nature of those discussions,
but one thing is clear. The political pressure to find
a name - to switch from an institutional assault on
the BBC to the identification of a single (and
therefore more vulnerable) individual - was intense.
It was clearly not going to be possible for a
government whose reputation for honesty and integrity
was already in terminal decline to discredit BBC
journalism when the whole of the BBC, from its
chairman downwards, was standing foursquare behind
their journalists. But if they could nail down the
individual source and discredit that there might be
some chance of a respite.

The games-playing that followed was a travesty of the
principles of a free press, and a disgraceful display
of political chicanery. Every politician and every
journalist knows the rules: it is axiomatic to the
operation of a free press that no journalist will ever
name their source, because the vast majority of
information would dry up if there was any risk of
exposure. 

In issues such as defence and security, where sources
are usually in breach of the Official Secrets Act, no
one would talk. Governments would be free to spend
money corruptly, take ill-judged decisions or
implement undemocratic policies without fear of public
scrutiny.

In defence and security matters, more than any other
area of public reporting, the source/journalist
relationship is central to this democratic process of
scrutiny and interrogation. Alastair Campbell, a
journalist, knows that better than anyone. So do
defence secretary Geoff Hoon and prime minister Tony
Blair. 

Their public calls for the BBC to cofirm or deny that
Dr Kelly was their source were not just a disingenuous
attempt to ignore the rules; they were a deliberate,
disgraceful attempt to undermine the foundations of
genuine journalistic inquiry in a desperate pitch to
shore up their own credibility.

In the light of what has happened, BBC journalists may
be asking themselves whether they should have behaved
differently. It is hard to see how. The nature of
their investigation goes to the heart of how a free
press should operate independently and in the public
interest. 

The government, however, cannot be let off the hook.
It has demonstrated a profound contempt for the most
basic conventions governing relationships between
press and politicians. It is possible that, as a
result, a man has died. 

As a price to pay in the battle for political
survival, that is unforgiveable.

? Steven Barnett is professor of communications at the
University of Westminster. 



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From tonysutton at newsdesign.net  Sun Jul 20 17:15:25 2003
From: tonysutton at newsdesign.net (Tony Sutton)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:50 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Re: Media-watch Digest, Vol 5, Issue 7
In-Reply-To: <E19di46-00051h-01@dulnain.stir.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <BB40385C.4265%tonysutton@newsdesign.net>

SUMMER AT COLDTYPE

We're in Summer Slowdown mode at coldtype.net, but still posting a wealth of
new stuff each week from our regular columnists. This week's gems include:

* John Pilger, on how the lies of Britain's PM Tony Blair and his chums are
still lying to parliament about the sale of arms to countries who really
ought not to have them . . .

* George Monbiot, in a new role of Bilious Old Git, takes a jaundiced look
at students at Oxford University' especially the 'social lepers destined to
become our lords and masters' at the Oxford Union . . .

* Antonia Zerbisias looks at the hounding of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings,
because he is/was Canadian; and how the country's media seems to have almost
totally ignored an 800-page report on . . . the Canadian media . . . . and,
in her third new column of the week, she criticises the Canadian government
for its slow and muted reaction to the death of freelance photojournalist
Zahra Kazemi, who acquired a broken skull after her arrest on June 23 by
secret police in Iran . . . .

* Norman Solomon wonders how long America can continue to tolerate the
funding of its political leaders . . . . and, in a second column, remembers
how the media attacked a congressman who dared to suggest, eight months ago,
that George Bush would try to deceive the public about Iraq. When, he asks,
will these pundits apologise to the congressman . . . .?
Click here to go to the NORMAN SOLOMON download page

* Michael I. Niman, in case you're wondering, is spending his summer in
Belize, doing his anthropological studies. Lucky man . . .

Finally, we're pleased to announce that Danny Schechter's book, Embedded:
Weapons of Mass Deception (you can download a sample chapter at
coldtype.net) is about to be published in hardback. More information shortly
. . .

COMING SOON ? MORE BOOKS, ESSAYS & GREAT PHOTOJOURNALISM

Download all these articles, al in pdf format, and much more at
http://www.coldtype.net


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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Tue Jul 22 13:10:52 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:51 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Watch Ceefax and teletext, too!
Message-ID: <20030722121052.15973.qmail@web80512.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Media Watch friends,
the following has bugged me ever since it appeared on
BBC ceefax.
I complained by phone (Tel 08700100222 BBC
information).
I don't know how many complaints about this ceefax
page the BBC received.
They never tell you - or do they?
Anyway - I have just across the handwritten note I
made of the text (once again).
I think it's shocking because it exposes a very
specific frame of mind.
I don't really know what to do with it.
So here it is (sorry about typos and I probably didn't
get all the " "quotation marks).

BBC Ceefax the 8th of May, 2003
The headline in the news index read:
"Asylum tide 'risking social unrest'" 
ceefax page 104:
"MPs condemn failings in Asylum system
increasing numbers of asylum seekers could trigger
social unrest and boost support for extremist parties,
a Commons 
committee has warned.
The Home Affairs committee said the Government set
'unrealistic' 
targets for removing failed asylum seekers.
But is said the deportation system had improved in
recent months.
Home Office minister Beverly Hughes said the
government 'has been acting 
on warning bells' since race riots in 2001"

{Image of tide and flood, no figures or statistics
whatsoever.
Had to think of the 'river of blood speech'.
The race riots from 2001: that were disillusioned
second and third generation poor Asian youth?
Who is responsible for writing the Ceefax pages?}

On the same day  Teletext ITV read as follows:
8th May 2003 at 11.45 hours
page number 303 
MPs warn over asylum numbers
"Spiralling numbers of asylum seekers could overwhelm
Britian and trigger social unrest MPs warned.
A home affairs select committee study said the asylum
issue may already have led to a "political backlash"
as voters turn to extremist parties.
But Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes said the
Government is making "substantial progress" with tough
new legislation and tighter boarder control."

Best wishes
Sigi
 


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From Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk  Wed Jul 23 00:24:01 2003
From: Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk (YvonneMarshall)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:54 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 
	[CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to 9-11 Commission - a must read
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<h1>[CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg  to 9/11 Commission - a must read</h1>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>From: Jim Rarey
<li>Subject: [CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg  to 9/11 Commission - a must read
<li>Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 21:15:37 -0800
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<DIV><A
href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm">http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/witness_kleinberg.htm</A></DIV>
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            <DIV class=navText><A title="About the 9/11 Commission"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>About the Commission</FONT></A> | <A
            title="Information about the public hearings"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Hearings</FONT></A> | <A title="Press materials"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/press/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Press</FONT></A> | <A title=Archive
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/index.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Archive</FONT></A> | <A title="Contact the Commission"
            href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/contact.htm"><FONT
            size=2>Contact Us</FONT></A> </DIV>
            <H4>First public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist
            Attacks Upon the United States</H4>
            <H4>Statement of Mindy Kleinberg to the<BR>National Commission on
            Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States<BR>March 31, 2003</H4>
            <P>My name is Mindy Kleinberg. My husband Alan Kleinberg, 39 yrs
            old, was killed in the WTC on September 11, 2001. As I testify here
            today about the 9/11 attacks, I will begin by saying that my
            thoughts are very much with the men and women who are involved in
            armed conflict overseas and their families who wait patiently for
            them to return.
            <P>This war is being fought on two fronts, overseas as well as here
            on our shores; this means that we are all soldiers in this fight
            against terrorism. As the threat of terrorism mounts here in the
            United States, the need to address the failures of September 11 is
            more important than ever. It is an essential part of "lessons
            learned".
            <P>As such, this commission has an extremely important task before
            it. I am here today to ask you, the commissioners, to help us
            understand how this could have happened; help us understand where
            the breakdown was in our nation's defense capabilities.
            <H4>Where were we on the morning of September 11th?</H4>
            <P>On the morning of September 11th my three-year-old son, Sam, and
            I walked Jacob 10, and Lauren, 7 to the bus stop at about 8:40 a.m.
            It was the fourth day of a new school year and you could still feel
            everyone's excitement. It was such a beautiful day that Sam and I
            literally skipped home oblivious to what was happening in NYC.
            <P>At around 8:55 I was confirming play date plans for Sam with a
            friend when she said, "I can't believe what I am watching on TV, a
            plane has just hit the World Trade Center." For some reason it did
            not register with me until a few minutes later when I calmly asked,
            "what building did you say?" "Oh that's Alan's building I have to
            call you back."
            <P>There was no answer when I tried to reach him at the office. By
            now my house started filling with people--his mother, my parents,
            our sisters and friends. The seriousness of the situation was
            beginning to register. We spent the rest of the day calling
            hospitals, and the Red Cross and any place else we could think of to
            see if we could find him.
            <P>I'll never forget thinking all day long, "how am I going to tell
            Jacob and Lauren that their father was missing?"
            <P>They came home to a house filled with people but no Daddy. How
            were they going to be able to wait calmly for his return? What if he
            was really hurt? This was their hero, their king their best friend,
            their father. The thoughts of that day replay over and over in our
            heads always wishing for a different outcome.
            <P>We are trying to learn to live with the pain. We will never
            forget where we were or how we felt on September 11th.
            <P>But where was our government, its agencies, and institutions
            prior to and on the morning of September 11th?
            <H4>The Theory of Luck </H4>
            <P>With regard to the 9/11 attacks, it has been said that the
            intelligence agencies have to be right 100% of the time and the
            terrorists only have to get lucky once. This explanation for the
            devastating attacks of September 11th, simple on its face, is wrong
            in its value. Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once:
            they were lucky over and over again. Allow me to illustrate.
            <H4>The SEC</H4>
            <P>The terrorist's lucky streak began the week before September 11th
            with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC, in
            concert with the United States intelligence agencies, has
            sophisticated software programs that are used in "real-time" to
            watch both domestic and overseas markets to seek out trends that may
            indicate a present or future crime. In the week prior to September
            11th both the SEC and U.S. intelligence agencies ignored one major
            stock market indicator, one that could have yielded valuable
            information with regard to the September 11th attacks.
            <P>On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before
            September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United
            Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors
            who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term the
            stock prices of both Airlines would plummet. Never before on the
            Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American
            Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least
            $5 million after the September 11th attacks.
            <P>Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and
            the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.
            <P>Why these aberrant trades were not discovered prior to 9/11? Who
            were the individuals who placed these trades? Have they been
            investigated? Who was responsible for monitoring these activities?
            Have those individuals been held responsible for their inaction?
            <H4>The INS</H4>
            <P>Prior to 9/11, our US intelligence agencies should have stopped
            the 19 terrorists from entering this country for intelligence
            reasons, alone. However, their failure to do so in 19 instances does
            not negate the luck involved for the terrorists when it comes to
            their visa applications and our Immigration and Naturalization
            Service, or INS.
            <P>With regard to the INS, the terrorists got lucky 15 individual
            times, because 15 of the 19 hijackers' visas should have been
            unquestionably denied.
            <P>Most of the 19 hijackers were young, unmarried, and un-employed
            males. They were, in short, the "classic over-stay candidates". A
            seasoned former Consular officer stated in National Review magazine,
            "Single, idle young adults with no specific destination in the
            United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances."
            <P>Yet these 19 young single, unemployed, "classic overstay
            candidates still received their visas." I am holding in my hand the
            applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. All of these
            forms are incomplete and incorrect.
            <P>Some of the terrorists listed their means of support as simply
            "student" failing to then list the name and address of any school or
            institution. Others, when asked about their means of support for
            their stay in the US wrote "myself" and provided no further
            documentation. Some of the terrorists listed their destination in
            the US as simply "hotel" or "California" or "New York". One even
            listed his destination as "no".
            <P>Had the INS or State Department followed the law, at least 15 of
            the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been
            in the United States on September 11th, 2001.
            <P>Help us to understand how something as simple as reviewing forms
            for completeness could have been missed at least 15 times. How many
            more lucky terrorists gained unfettered access into this country?
            With no one being held accountable, how do know this still isn't
            happening?
            <H4>Airline and Airport Security</H4>
            <P>On the morning of September 11th, the terrorists' luck commenced
            with airline and airport security. When the 19 hijackers went to
            purchase their tickets (with cash and/or credit cards) and to
            receive their boarding passes, nine were singled out and questioned
            through a screening process. Luckily for those nine terrorists, they
            passed the screening process and were allowed to continue on with
            their mission.
            <P>But, the terrorist's luck didn't end at the ticket counter; it
            also accompanied them through airport security, as well. Because how
            else would the hijackers get specifically contraband items such as
            box-cutters, pepper spray or, according to one FAA executive
            summary, a gun on those planes?
            <P>Finally, sadly for us, years of GAO recommendations to secure
            cockpit doors were ignored making it all too easy for the hijackers
            to gain access to the flight controls and carryout their suicide
            mission.
            <H4>FAA and NORAD</H4>
            <P>Prior to 9/11, FAA and Department of Defense Manuals gave clear,
            comprehensive instructions on how to handle everything from minor
            emergencies to full blown hijackings.
            <P>These "protocols" were in place and were practiced regularly for
            a good reason--with heavily trafficked air space; airliners without
            radio and transponder contact are collisions and/or calamities
            waiting to happen.
            <P>Those protocols dictate that in the event of an emergency, the
            FAA is to notify NORAD. Once that notification takes place, it is
            then the responsibility of NORAD to scramble fighter-jets to
            intercept the errant plane(s). It is a matter of routine procedure
            for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners in order to
            regain contact with the pilot.
            <P>If that weren't protection enough, on September 11th, NEADS (or
            the North East Air Defense System dept of NORAD) was several days
            into a semiannual exercise known as "Vigilant Guardian". This meant
            that our North East Air Defense system was fully staffed. In short,
            key officers were manning the operation battle center, "fighter jets
            were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board."
            <P>Lucky for the terrorists none of this mattered on the morning of
            September 11th.
            <P>Let me illustrate using just flight 11 as an example.
            <P>American Airline Flight 11 departed from Boston Logan Airport at
            7:45 a.m. The last routine communication between ground control and
            the plane occurred at 8:13 a.m. Between 8:13 and 8:20 a.m. Flight 11
            became unresponsive to ground control. Additionally, radar indicated
            that the plane had deviated from its assigned path of flight. Soon
            thereafter, transponder contact was lost - (although planes can
            still be seen on radar - even without their transponders).
            <P>Two Flight 11 airline attendants had separately called American
            Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and the
            infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point, it
            would seem abundantly clear that Flight 11 was an emergency.
            <P>Yet, according to NORAD's official timeline, NORAD was not
            contacted until 20 minutes later at 8:40 a.m. Tragically the fighter
            jets were not deployed until 8:52 a.m. -- a full 32 minutes after
            the loss of contact with flight 11.
            <P>Why was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a
            delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible when
            NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our
            Northeast airspace?
            <P>Flight's 175, 77 and 93 all had this same repeat pattern of
            delays in notification and delays in scrambling fighter jets. Delays
            that are unimaginable considering a plane had, by this time, already
            hit the WTC
            <P>Even more baffling for us is the fact that the fighter jets were
            not scrambled from the closest air force bases. For example, for the
            flight that hit the Pentagon, the jets were scrambled from Langley
            Air Force in Hampton, Virginia rather than Andrews Air Force Base
            right outside D.C. As a result, Washington skies remained wholly
            unprotected on the morning of September 11th. At 9:41 a.m. one hour
            and 11 minutes after the first plane was hijack confirmed by NORAD,
            Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fighter jets were still
            miles away. Why?
            <P>So the hijackers luck had continued. On September 11th both the
            FAA and NORAD deviated from standard emergency operating procedures
            .Who were the people that delayed the notification? Have they been
            questioned? In addition, the interceptor planes or fighter jets did
            not fly at their maximum speed.
            <P>Had the belatedly scrambled fighter jets flown at their maximum
            speed of engagement, MACH-12, they would have reached NYC and the
            Pentagon within moments of their deployment, intercepted the
            hijacked airliners before they could have hit their targets, and
            undoubtedly saved lives.
            <H4>Leadership</H4>
            <H4>Joint Chief Of Staff</H4>
            <P>The acting Joint Chief of staff on Sept 11th was on the morning
            of September 11th, he was having a routine meeting . Acting Joint
            Chief of staff Myers stated that he saw a TV. report about a plane
            hitting the WTC but thought it was a small plane or something like
            that. So, he went ahead with his meeting. "Meanwhile the second
            World Trade Center was hit by another jet. Nobody informed us of
            that," Myers said. By the time he came out of the meeting the
            Pentagon had been hit.
            <P>Whose responsibility was it to relay this emergency to the Joint
            Chief of Staff? Have they been held accountable for their error?
            Surely this represents a breakdown of protocol.
            <H4>Secretary of Defense</H4>
            <P>The Secretary of Defense, was at his desk doing paperwork when
            AA77 crashed into the Pentagon.
            <P>As reported, Secretary Rumsfeld felt the building shake, went
            outside, saw the damage and started helping the injured onto
            stretchers. After aiding the victims, the Secretary then went into
            the 'War Room'.
            <P>How is it possible that the National Military Command Center,
            located in the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air
            traffic controllers from 8:46 a.m. did not communicate to the
            Secretary of Defense also at the Pentagon about the other hijacked
            planes especially the one headed to Washington? How is that
            Secretary of Defense could have remained at this desk until the
            crash? Whose responsibility is it to relay emergency situations to
            him? Is he then supposed to go to the war room?
            <H4>President</H4>
            <P>At 6:15 a.m. on the morning of 9/11, my husband Alan left for
            work; he drove into New York City, and was at his desk and working
            at his NASDAQ Security Trading position with Cantor Fitzgerald, in
            Tower One of the WTC by 7:30 a.m.
            <P>In contrast, on the morning of September 11, President Bush was
            scheduled to listen to elementary school children read.
            <P>Before the President walked into the classroom NORAD had
            sufficient information that the plane that hit the WTC was hijacked.
            At that time, they also had knowledge that two other commercial
            airliners, in the air, were also hijacked. It would seem that a
            national emergency was in progress.
            <P>Yet President Bush was allowed to enter a classroom full of young
            children and listen to the students read.
            <P>Why didn't the Secret Service inform him of this national
            emergency? When is a President supposed to be notified of everything
            the agencies know? Why was the President permitted by the Secret
            Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school? Was this Secret
            Service protocol?
            <P>In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could
            cost thousands of lives; and it's precisely for this reason that our
            government has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to insure
            that these top officials are among the first to be informed--not the
            last. Where were these individuals who did not properly inform these
            top officials? Where was the breakdown in communication?
            <H4>Was it luck or No Fault Government</H4>
            <P>Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it
            luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck
            when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes
            with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and
            NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national
            emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely
            basis?
            <P>To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this
            repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken
            communication, one cannot still call it luck.
            <P>If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals
            accountable for not doing their jobs properly then how can we ever
            expect for terrorists not to get lucky again?
            <P>And, that is why I am here with all of you today. Because, we
            must find the answers as to what happened that day so as to ensure
            that another September 11th can never happen again.
            <P>Commissioners, I implore you to answer our questions. You are the
            Generals in the terrorism fight on our shores. In answering our
            questions, you have the ability to make this nation a safer place
            and in turn, minimize the damage if there is another terrorist
            attack. And, if there is another attack, the next time, our systems
            will be in place and working and luck will not be an issue.
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      <P><BR><STRONG>Current News</STRONG>
      <HR noShade SIZE=1>
      The first public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
      Upon the United States will be held March 31 - April 1, 2003 at the U.S.
      Custom House, One Bowling Green, New York City, New York. This hearing is
      open to the media and the public. [<A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/index.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>more</FONT></A>] <BR>
      <P><STRONG>Commission Members</STRONG>
      <HR noShade SIZE=1>
      <A href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_kean.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Thomas H. Kean<BR><EM>Chair</EM></FONT></A> <BR><BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_hamilton.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Lee H. Hamilton<BR><EM>Vice Chair</A></EM> <BR><BR></FONT><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_ben-veniste.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Richard Ben-Veniste</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_cleland.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Max Cleland</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_fielding.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Fred F. Fielding</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_gorelick.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Jamie S. Gorelick</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_gorton.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Slade Gorton</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_lehman.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>John F. Lehman</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_roemer.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Timothy J. Roemer</FONT></A> <BR><A
      href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_thompson.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>James R. Thompson</FONT></A> <BR>
      <P><STRONG>Executive Director</STRONG>
      <HR noShade SIZE=1>
      <A href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_zelikow.htm"><FONT
      color=#000000>Philip D. Zelikow</FONT></A>
      <P></P></TD>
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      <P align=center>National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
      States<BR>Tel: 202-331-4060&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<A
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      color=#193163>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</FONT></A>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fax:
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<li><span class="curmsg"><strong>[CTRL] Statement of Mindy Kleinberg  to 9/11 Commission - a must read</strong>,
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From jamesdoleman at hotmail.com  Wed Jul 23 09:37:48 2003
From: jamesdoleman at hotmail.com (james doleman)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:54 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Re "Astroturf"
Message-ID: <BAY2-F19XktM1qjj0aI00000b47@hotmail.com>


Hello all

Something worth looking out for in newspaper letters pages is what our 
American friends call "astroturf" ie creating a fake grassroots campaign.

Yesterdays Glasgow Herad had a number of letters defending Blair, which 
seemed odd, but I recognised one of the names as being a New labour hack I 
knew from my university days.

I did a quick Google search and surprise surprise, three of the 
correspondents were Labour candidates, the Herald printed my letter on the 
subject (see below) and I think it is always something worth checking when 
you see pro-govt letters in the press.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I WAS interested to see the number of letters on July 22 defending Tony 
Blair and Alastair Campbell while attacking the BBC. I noted a number of 
familiar names: there is a Simon Tiernan, who was third in the Labour list 
at the last Scottish Parliament elections, there is a Thomas Docherty, who 
is the Labour candidate for North Tayside, and a John Maxton who stood for 
the Labour Party in Cathcart.

Of course these are common names, and the fact that none of your 
correspondents mentioned their links with the government could mean that we 
are dealing with a totally unconnected group who happen to have the same 
names as these ambitious young Labourites. Perhaps we should be told?

In the US this process is called Astroturf - fake grassroots.

James Doleman, 8a Crown Circus, Glasgow.

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From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul 23 15:03:32 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:55 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] 
	Crisis of Barrister Blair - Evening Standard, London, 11 July 2003
Message-ID: <20030723140332.21624.qmail@web80509.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Media Watch friends,
this is an article from the PRINT EDITION of the
Evening Standard (London).
A nice analysis of the present PM's personality.
I promise you it?s a very good read!
(Sorry about typos)
Best wishes
Sigi

Evening Standard Friday 11 July, 2003 (print edition
page 11)
Today the PM makes his case for a third term, just as
the electorate?s trust in him is faltering

by ALISTAIR BEATON (writer of the political satire
Feelgood)

THE CRISIS OF BARRISTER BLAIR

One of the great mysteries of our age is Tony Blair?s
relationship to the truth.
Is our Prime Minister a man who calculatingly misled
the nation in the run-up to the war with Iraq?
Or is he basically an honesty man, a decent bloke,
struggling to act out his Christian principles in the
grubby world of politics, where nobody?s hands can be
entirely clean?

Although a strong case can be made for either view,
they both somehow fail to satisfy.
There is something simplistic about reducing this
complex man to either saint or sinner.
To unravel the mystery that is Blair, we mustn?t
overlook the obvious clues.
The one big, huge, clunking clue that most observers
disregard is Blair's first chosen profession: he is a
lawyer. Trained as a lawyer, he retains the instinct
of a lawyer. Not just a lawyer but a barrister.

In our adversarial system, barristers want outcomes.
To achieve their outcomes, they have to make the best
of the evidence available. Sometimes that evidence
won?t be very strong. That?s all right; with the right
advocacy, the right presentation, the right spin, the
case can still be won, provided the facts are
assembled and emphasised  correctly.
What the case is not about is a forensic search for 
truth. The barrister starts with the conclusion - that
the accused is innocent, or that the accused is guilty
- and argues back from that.

Using this analogy, Blair?s relationship to George W.
Bush can suddenly be seen in a new light. Barrister
Blair is approached by a very prestigious, powerful
and rich American client who?s involved in a dispute
with a bloke in Iraq and has come up with the idea of
a pre-emptive war. Will Barrister Blair accept the
brief? He ponders. 
It?s quite clear that British public opinion doesn?t
much like this American client, so there?s a strong
chance the jury will be unsympathetic. 
What?s more, the case for going to war is not exactly
watertight. Many are expressing the view that without
a second UN resolution such a war would be a clear
breach of international law.
Barrister Blair decides to fly to the United States to
talk with his client (this client is much too powerful
to wish to come and see the barrister).
Barrister Blair finds himself liking the client. Very
different on the surface, they actually share quite a
number attitudes and values.
They are both devout Christians. They both see the
world in simple terms, as a struggle between right and
wrong, good and bad, light and dark. They are both
profoundly ignorant of history.
And although the barrister is undoubtedly brighter
than the client, he?s not actually that bright.
Starry-eyed at the thought of winning this most
prestigious and important of cases, Barrister Blair
accepts his brief.
Confident of his ability to sway others, Barrister
Blair flies home, decides not to say much to any of
his senior colleagues, preferring to share his
thoughts with a tiny group of junior barristers whom
he has personally hired to look after his interests at
all times.
The most important and trusted of these juniors -
purely for the sake of argument, let?s call him
Alastair- goes to a bunch of highly qualified
researchers and asks them to come up with some telling
arguments as to why the bloke in Iraq needs to be
removed from power.
By this stage, many of Barrister Blair?s senior
colleagues are getting thoroughly alarmed. How come a
mere junior is dealing with such important matters?
(If they had known at the time that the final
documentation included chunks of a 12-year-old student
thesis downloaded from the internet, they would have
been even more alarmed.)
Undeterred, Barrister Blair goes into action. It?s not
his job to ask awkward questions about the source of
his material. And anyhow, if the worst come to the
worst, he can always blame the junior for misleading
him.
Barrister Blair proves to be a consummate performer.
He wins his case because his advocacy in
breathtakingly successful. He holds his audience
spellbound with his rhetoric, his passion, his
clarity, his obvious commitment to the truth. It?s
like watching a great actor on the stage. And like any
great actor, he starts to believe in what he is
saying.
This is where method acting meets politics, this is
where the performer has to live the emotions of the
character he?s playing. And Actor Blair has had lots
of practice in method acting. Famously, there was the
trembling emotion of the ?people?s princess? speech.
And there was the deeply moving conference speech
following the tragedy of 11 September, when Actor
Blair was damp-eyed with emotion as he called for
action to end poverty and injustice in Africa.

Vicars can be impassioned too, of course. Sometimes
Barrister Blair and Actor Blair drop their guard and
you catch a glimpse of Vicar Blair. Vicar Blair knows
he is right, because God told him so. Vicar Blair is
affronted, genuinely hurt and outraged when he is
accused of being a liar.
Intoxicated by pulpit rhetoric and an intimate
relationship with the Almighty, Vicar Blair is ready
to drop cluster bombs on children if he thinks it is
the right thing to do.
Vicar Blair thinks everything he does will have good
outcomes. This is worrying. There is a growing sense
of unease in the parish.
Put together Barrister Blair, Actor Blair and Vicar
Blair and you get a Prime Minister who is a
self-deceiver, a man who believes in his own goodness,
a warmonger who believes he is a man of peace.
One day soon, the barrister will fail to impress the
jury, the audiences will stop coming to see the actor,
and the parishioners will rise up and get rid of the
vicar.


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From billy.clark at ntlworld.com  Mon Jul 28 15:20:50 2003
From: billy.clark at ntlworld.com (Billy Clark)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:55 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] kelly testimony link
Message-ID: <B071C569-C106-11D7-A136-000393A21DAE@ntlworld.com>

The text of the FAC interview with Dr Kelly is at the link below

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmfaff/uc1025-i/
uc102502.htm

i also noted that Clare Short has started calling Blair a 
"neo-conservative".


From sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 31 14:04:28 2003
From: sigi_here at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sigi=20D?=)
Date: Thu Apr  1 12:53:56 2004
Subject: [Media-watch] Think Bliar - think delusion: definitions
Message-ID: <20030731130428.82740.qmail@web80504.mail.yahoo.com>


"Non est magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae."
Seneca

delusion (de?lu?sion) (d[schwa]-loo?zh[schwa]n) [L.
delusio, from de from + ludus a game]??a false belief
that is firmly maintained in spite of incontrovertible
and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary and in
spite of the fact that other members of the culture do
not share the belief.

erotomanic delusion, ??a delusional conviction that
some other person, usually of higher status and often
famous, is in love with the individual; it is one of
the subtypes of delusional disorder.

delusion of grandeur, ??grandiose delusion, ??a
delusion involving an exaggerated concept of one's
importance, power, or knowledge or that one is, or has
a special relationship with, a deity or a famous
person; it is one of the subtypes of delusional
disorder.

All quotes are from: Heath Library at Mercksource
http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_health_library_frame.jspzQzpgzEz/pp/us/cns/cns_hl_dorlands.jspzQzpgzEzzSzppdocszSzuszSzcommonzSzdorlandszSzdorlandzSzdmd_d_07zPzhtm


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