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Here is the great irony with regard to the deficit reduction process that we have just gone through: In poll after poll, the American people have made it clear that they believe in shared sacrifice. Instead of putting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and environmental protection on the chopping block, the American people have said that they believe the best way to reduce the deficit is to end tax breaks for the wealthy, big oil, and Wall Street and take a hard look at military spending. Yet, the budget deal just approved does the exact opposite of what the American people want. The wealthy and large corporations contribute nothing while there will be a major reduction in services for working families and the most vulnerable people in our country. Enough is enough! The American people must fight back. We need a government which represents all the people, not just the wealthy, campaign contributors and lobbyists. In these tough and discouraging times, despair is not an option. This fight is not just for us, it is for our children and grandchildren and for the environmental survival of the planet.Listening to the Stoopid Twins* Who Supposedly Take Their Orders from the Tea Partiers, it occurs to me that we've already suffered our much-awaited Kristallnacht and have been for years now (and the uniquely "America First" Brown Shirts are winning big time). Too bad they don't actually wear brown shirts so the slow among us could catch on more quickly. Wolfgang Blitzem interviews Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist/Independent-VT) concerning economics matters about which Wolf has no earthly idea. From our friends at Down With Tyranny:
Really pathetic to read this on the White House Blog yesterday: Myth: President Obama caved. Even sadder that they're still defending the Satan Sandwich that has caused the stock market to crash. Sadder still is that they took 95 Democrats over the cliff with them. They all based their support for the bill Boehner brags got 98% of what the GOP wanted on the assumption that the mean old Republicans had a gun to their heads and that they would crash the economy. If Obama was a leader or the Democrats had any guts they would have called their bluff or used the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling without giving in the right-wing hostage-taking and terrorism. Instead we get a mealy-mouthed defense of an untenable stand that solves nothing at all and that the markets saw right through, as it fell off a cliff. Here's Independent Senator Bernie Sanders explaining to CNN airhead Wolf Bintzer why he voted against it and what's really wrong with the deal:
Bernie:From the BradBlog on why the dumb are confused by the "smart." Not!The first round of $917 billion in discretionary cuts over the next 10 years will begin in the 2012 budget. Although nobody can predict exactly what programs will be cut and by how much because those decisions will be made over the coming months and years by the appropriation committees, here’s what working families can look forward to: · At a time when there are long waiting lists for affordable childcare and Head Start, it is likely that these programs will be significantly cut. · At a time when the United States is falling further and further behind other countries in the terms of the quality of our education, it is likely that tens of thousands of teachers and school personnel will be laid off. · At a time when working class families are finding it harder and harder to send their kids to college, it is likely that there will be cutbacks in federal student aid programs. · At a time when hunger among seniors and children is rising, it is likely that there will be cutbacks in various nutrition programs. · At a time when 50 million Americans have no health insurance and many of them are utilizing community health centers as their medical homes, it is likely that there will be cuts in primary healthcare. · At a time when states, cities and towns have already laid off over 500,000 public service employees, it is likely that there will be even more lay-offs in police and fire protection, and large reductions in federal support for roads, bridges, water quality, sewage and public transportation. Further, there will likely be cuts in home heating assistance, affordable housing, support for family based agriculture, and research in finding cures for cancer and other diseases. In addition, there will likely be major staffing reductions in agencies which are trying to protect the physical health and economic well-being of our people. It is quite likely that the EPA, which enforces the rules regarding clean water and clean air, will be cut. The SEC, which regulates against the greed and recklessness of Wall Street, will be undermined. It is also very possible that the Social Security Administration, which assures that seniors and the disabled receive the benefits to which they are entitled in a timely manner, will also be cut. That is just some of what will likely happen as a result of the first $900 billion in cuts in this $2.5 trillion deficit reduction package. The second phase of this legislation calls for the establishment of a Super Committee composed of 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans from the House and 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans from the Senate. Let's be clear. The mandate for this 12 member Super Committee is to look at EVERY program of the federal government and come up with $1.5 trillion more in savings. This means that, at a time when the Republicans and an increased number of Democrats are calling for major cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, all of these programs will be on the chopping block. If the committee is unable to reach an agreement with a majority vote, there will then be a "sequestration" process which would require $500 billion in cuts to defense spending and $500 billion more in across-the-board cuts to domestic discretionary spending. In that scenario, Social Security, Medicare benefits and Medicaid would be spared, but even more draconian cuts would occur in programs that sustain working families. Here is the great irony with regard to the deficit reduction process that we have just gone through: In poll after poll, the American people have made it clear that they believe in shared sacrifice. Instead of putting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and environmental protection on the chopping block, the American people have said that they believe the best way to reduce the deficit is to end tax breaks for the wealthy, big oil, and Wall Street and take a hard look at military spending. Yet, the budget deal just approved does the exact opposite of what the American people want. The wealthy and large corporations contribute nothing while there will be a major reduction in services for working families and the most vulnerable people in our country. Enough is enough! The American people must fight back. We need a government which represents all the people, not just the wealthy, campaign contributors and lobbyists. In these tough and discouraging times, despair is not an option. This fight is not just for us, it is for our children and grandchildren and for the environmental survival of the planet.Every single Blue America-endorsed candidate for Congress has said they would have voted against the Satan Sandwich. Alan Grayson wrote a pledge that was signed by Ed Potosnak (NJ), Nick Ruiz (FL), Ilya Sheyman (IL) and Norman Solomon (CA). Eric Griego (NM) and Chris Donovan put out their own statements with the same points - these points (Grayson):We Are Against Any and Every Cut to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Not today, not tomorrow, and not ever. No way, no how. Not on your life, and not on mine, because both your life and my life may depend on it. N-E-V-E-R.Norman Solomon, one of the signers sent this message out to voters in northern California yesterday, further reinforcing and explaining his position:This is a very bad deal and a huge mistake. Instead of capitulating to Republican ideologues in Congress, we should stand our ground on behalf of seniors, children and other vulnerable Americans. All the rhetoric about “shared sacrifice” rings hollow when the vast majority of us are being sacrificed to the benefit of big banks and Wall Street. There are plenty of sensible and effective ways to reduce the deficit - including a transaction tax on Wall Street, an end to the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy and a major reduction in military spending. But the bipartisan dealmakers in Washington are ripping up the social compact and slashing the safety net that’s essential for vast numbers of Americans. One of the most dangerous aspects of this deal is that it explicitly sets the stage for future actions to undermine Medicare. This scenario is a betrayal that strikes at the heart of precious values, and it’s among many of the current threats to vital social programs. I am committed to defending Social Security and Medicare on the campaign trail and as a member of Congress. As a progressive Democrat, I will support the president’s policies when he’s right - and I will oppose his policies when he’s wrong. With this budget deal, he is profoundly wrong. The people of this congressional district have a right to know how each candidate for Congress would have voted on this budget deal. I would have joined with other progressive House members in voting no.
Brad Friedman August 5, 2011 Record Profits for 'Job Creators,' Record Food Stamps For Everyone Else One of the GOP's greatest new (and most cynical) propaganda successes is the invention of the absurd, misleading, inaccurate phrase "job creators" as a euphemism for corporations, or rich people, or their wealthy patrons, or whoever it refers to in reality. But those corporations don't "create jobs." People do. When they have money to spend on things, they do. Surely, even fake "conservatives" are familiar with "Supply and Demand." It's just not politically convenient or expedient for them to mention that phrase out loud right now. People who don't have jobs don't tend to buy much. If they have jobs, those people become job creators because they buy stuff. That the rich, corporate fat cats who now run the country (instead of "we, the people" as was formally the case - in theory) are not "job creators" is underscored plainly by these two recent news items:Noam Chomsky never has any trouble in comprehending what the 'thugs are up to. But I don't suppose anyone is interested in being able to utilize his vast experience with impending fascism even now. And here's a tidbit you'll not soon forget. If you're actually interested and following the developments ruling your economic and political life.1) Despite nearly unprecedented unemployment numbers, profits for U.S. corporations were at an all-time record high in 2010. Fancy that. And they are now on pace to break that record in 2011.
2) Despite profits for U.S. corporations at record highs, for the American people, the real "job creators," food stamp usage is now also at an all-time record high...
See any problems there? And contradictions between items 1 and 2?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
* John Boehner and Mitch McConnell (supposed Very Serious People)
Nah. Cause they already know it. And if you don't believe me, guess what else I found in my daily flouncing around in Blogworld.Dr. Paul Craig RobertsThe New Yorker has published a story planted on Nicholas Schmidle by unidentified sources who claim to be familiar with the alleged operation that murdered Osama bin Laden. There is no useful information in the story. Its purpose seems simply to explain away or cover up holes in the original story, principally why did the Seals murder an unarmed, unresisting Osama bin Laden whose capture would have resulted in a goldmine of terrorist information and whose show trial would have rescued the government’s crumbling 9/11 story?
The gullible Schmidle tells us: “‘There was never any question of detaining or capturing him - it wasn’t a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,’ the special-operations officer told me.” In other words, the SEALs murdered bin Laden, because the US government did not want detainees, not because trigger-happy stupid SEALs destroyed a font of terrorist information.
Why did the SEALS dump bin Laden’s body in the ocean instead of producing the evidence to a skeptical world? No real explanation, just that SEALS had done the same thing to other victims. Schmidle writes: “All along, the SEALs had planned to dump bin Laden’s corpse into the sea - a blunt way of ending the bin Laden myth.” But before they did so, the US checked with an unidentified Saudi intelligence operative, who allegedly replied, “Your plan sounds like a good one.”
I mean, really.
After all of Sy Hersh’s New Yorker revelations of US government lies and plots, one can understand the pressure that might have been applied to the New Yorker to publish this fairy tale. But what is extraordinary is that there was a real story that Schmidle and the New Yorker could have investigated.
In the immediate aftermath of bin Laden’s alleged murder by the SEALs, Pakistani TV interviewed the next door neighbor to bin Laden’s alleged compound. Someone supplied the video with an English translation running at the bottom of the video. According to the translation, the next door neighbor, Mr. Bashir, said that he watched the entire operation from the roof of his house. There were 3 helicopters. Only 1 landed. About a dozen men got out and entered the house. They shortly returned and boarded the helicopter. When the helicopter lifted off it exploded, killing all aboard. Mr. Bashir reports seeing bodies and pieces of bodies all over.
The US government acknowledges that it lost a helicopter, but claims no one was hurt. Obviously, as there were no further landings, if everyone was killed as Mr. Bashir reports, there was no body to be dumped into the ocean.
A real investigation would begin with Mr. Bashir’s interview. Was he actually saying what the English translation reported? I have not been able to find the interview with the English translation, but I believe this is the interview that I saw. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0vo-L3VACs
Surely there is a qualified interpreter who can tell us what Mr. Bashir is saying. If the English translation that I saw is not a hoax, then we are presented with a story totally different from the one the government told us and repeated again through Mr. Schmidle.
If the English translation of Mr. Bashir’s interview is correct, one would think that there would be some interest on the part of US news organizations and on the part of the intelligence committees in Congress to question Mr. Bashir and his neighbors, many of whom are also interviewed on Pakistani TV saying that they have lived in Abbottabad all their lives and are absolutely certain that Osama bin Laden was not among them.
Mr. Schmidle goes to lengths to describe the SEALs’ weapons, although his story makes it clear that no weapons were needed as bin Laden is described as “unarmed” and undefended. The “startled” bin Laden didn’t even hear the helicopters or all the SEALs coming up the stairs. In addition to all his fatal illnesses which most experts believe killed him a decade ago, bin Laden must have been deaf as neighbors report that the sound of the helicopters was “intense.”
When Pakistanis on the scene in Abbottabad report a totally different story from the one that reaches us second and third hand from unidentified operatives speaking to reporters in the US who have never been to Abbottabad, shouldn’t someone qualified look into the story?
The Schmidle Muddle of the Osama Bin Laden Take Down Joshua Foust 8/4/2011 · 111 commentsNow we're getting warm!A special guest post by C. Christine Fair
On Monday, August 1, the New Yorker ran a piece by Nicholas Schmidle, a young freelance journalist, which proffered a breathtakingly detailed account of the Bin Laden Take-down in May of 2011. I have known Schmidle since the summer of 2006, when we met at my office at the United States Institute of Peace. He explained that he had a fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs that would allow him to live in Pakistan and write about his experiences for two years.
Mr. Schmidle had one serious problem: he was not an accredited journalist, which meant the Pakistani government was disinclined to give him a journalism visa. He sought my advice. I explained to him that visa issues are not my bailiwick but I outlined some of the key issues he could consider if and when he sets out upon his newfound adventure. Though he didn’t know much about Pakistan, Mr. Schmidle struck me as a fast study.
In the end, Dr. Shireen Mazari (an outspoken, anti-American polemicist) agreed to host Mr. Schmidle at the think-tank she ran at the time. However, it was a bargain with the devil: he still was not a journalist and he got his visa at the behest of a dubious shill for Pakistan’s intelligence agency.
Over the next few years, I watched Mr. Schmidle’s reporting. He had an eye for the key issues and he covered many important stories that others overlooked. I met him episodically in Islamabad when I came to Pakistan. In January 2008, Mr. Schmidle published a piece in the New York Times Magazine called the “Next-Gen Taliban.” In that article, he ventured into Quetta to attend an opening ceremony for the campaign office of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), which he described in anodyne terms as a “a hard-line Islamist party.”
Mr. Schmidle wrote that the men in attendance mostly spoke Pashto but “knowing Urdu, I could understand enough [of their Pashto] to realize that they weren’t rehashing the typical J.U.I. rhetoric.” That made the rest of the article immediately suspect. I knew Mr. Schmidle, and knew that his language skills in Urdu were functional at best and, even if he had superb Urdu skills (and he did not), this would not render Pashto comprehensible in the slightest. (It is not an Indo-Aryan language like Urdu and therefore has a grammar and syntax that is starkly different from Urdu.)
While one may recognize some Urdu words, without grammar and syntax the content of the discussion would have been opaque to Mr. Schmidle. Indeed, Pakistanis who have spent their entire life in the country speaking Urdu cannot understand Pashto and would never make the absurd claim to do so. How could Mr. Schmidle understand, must less interpret, what was going on without knowledge of Pashto or a translator? It seemed to me that things were not as they were reported.
I had a similar feeling this week when I began perusing Mr. Schmidle’s account of the Bin Laden raid. The account was deeply detailed. He described how the commander of the team, whom he called James “sat on the floor, squeezed among ten other SEALs, Ahmed [the translator], and Cairo [the malimois]. (The names of all the covert operators mentioned in this story have been changed.) James, a broad-chested man in his late thirties, does not have the lithe swimmer’s frame that one might expect of a SEAL—he is built more like a discus thrower.”
Schmidle detailed “James’” apparel and personal effects: he was sporting “a shirt and trousers in Desert Digital Camouflage, [carrying] a silenced Sig Sauer P226 pistol, along with extra ammunition; a CamelBak, for hydration; and gel shots, for endurance. He held a short-barrel, silenced M4 rifle.” He even inventoried the contents of this fellow’s pockets.
Mr. Schmidle then recalls, in riveting detail, the harrowing movements of the helicopters and how “the interior of the Black Hawks rustled alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered.” When the first helicopter encountered problems, Schmidle exposits how the pilot reoptimized his plans and aimed for “for an animal pen in the western section of the compound.” He next tells his readers how the SEALs in the ill-fated bird “braced themselves as the tail rotor swung around, scraping the security wall. The pilot jammed the nose forward to drive it into the dirt and prevent his aircraft from rolling onto its side. Cows, chickens, and rabbits scurried.”
He even describes how the translator Ahmed hollered in Pashto at the locals that a security operation was ongoing to allay their suspicions about the nature of the cacophony in the cantonment town. (This detail caught my eye as the majority of persons in Abbottabad, where the raid took place, speak Hindko rather than Pashto.) H(is) account is replete with quotes and other minute details obtained from persons seemingly involved directly in the assault and presumably speaking to him in person.
The article was in fact so detailed that it left the unmistakable impression that Mr. Schmidle had interviewed at least a few of the SEALs involved in the raid. During an NPR interview, Steve Inskeep explains that indeed Schmidle had spent time with the SEALs who were on the mission to get Bin Laden. NPR subsequently issued a correction for reasons noted below.
If not Navy SEALS, then perhaps he met some Navy Otters?
All of this makes for a gripping read. Too gripping I thought to myself. As it turned out, there is one very serious problem with Mr. Schmidle’s account: Schmidle never met any of the SEALs involved, as reported (with great tact and restraint) by Paul Farhi on August 3.
Farhi reached the same conclusion as I had: “a casual reader of the article wouldn’t know that [he had not interviewed the SEALS]; neither the article nor an editor’s note describes the sourcing for parts of the story. Schmidle, in fact, piles up so many details about some of the men, such as their thoughts at various times, that the article leaves a strong impression that he spoke with them directly.”
Surely a journalist or an editor with a commitment to informing—rather than amusing—a public would understand that disclosing this simple fact is critical to allowing readers to determine how much credibility they should put into this account. In the absence of such disclosure, we are left asking whether this was second or third-hand information? Who are the people that he spoke to and how credible is their information?
Such an egregious exercise of incaution raises a number of questions about the entire report.
Schmidle has demurred from tackling this serious issue of credibility, integrity and veracity directly. During a “live chat” with Mr. Schmidle on the New Yorker’s website yesterday, several persons including myself tried to ask Mr.Schmidle to explain this egregious oversight. (I posed the question four times throughout the course of the “live chat.” The moderator did not post a single one. (Earlier in the day, Schmidle and I exchanged emails wherein I expressed my dismay at his reportage.)
Many of us were following this in real time via twitter. I was not alone: others—including other journalists—tried to ask other tough questions but the moderator did not post them either. I also tried to post a comment to this effect along with other readers’ comments. That comment has not yet been posted.
Finally, after a volley of fatuous queries to which Schmidle responded with a peculiar degree of detail, the moderator finally let one person raise the issue that he neither met any of the SEALS involved nor indicated as much in his report.
Unfortunately for the credibility of this exercise, this person was Erin Simpson—a friend of Mr. Schmidle. Ms. Simpson had earlier defended him during a Twitter exchange with me wherein she responded to my vexed queries that “he’s a good friend.” She further intimated that someone involved in the operation may have spoken to him because he is a “GO’s kid.” The latter point references the fact that his father, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Robert E. Schmidle Jr., is the deputy commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
Schmidle answers Ms. Simpson in a familiar voice: “Hi Erin. Good question. I’ll just say that the 23 SEALs on the mission that evening were not the only ones who were listening to their radio communications.”
The response was risible and hardly addressed how he could have acquired such details of the operation through such means.
That the moderator passed on only softball questions and that this one question was posed by a “close friend,” raises more questions than the “live chat” could have answered.
What’s at Stake?
One may ask at first blush why a feel-good story about the Bin Laden raid is problematic or even merits sustained critique. From an American point of view, the story reads like the film script Schmidle may well aspire to write. It confirms all that we wanted to know about the raid and the bravado of our SEALS. The shooter, who finally killed Bin Laden, even managed to mutter “For God and Country” in the femtoseconds that his synapses took to pull the trigger, according to Schmidle.
However, there are implications that go well beyond Mr. Schmidle’s limits of journalism integrity and his own personal aggrandizement and professional aspirations.
First, many Muslims across the world fundamentally doubt the events of the Bin Laden raid. Some believe Bin Laden is still alive. Others believe he died long ago. Others believe that the events of May 2 were staged to allow the Obama administration to make an exit from Afghanistan. As Mr. Schmidle’s is the first (and so far only) account of the drama, these problems cast a pale of doubt upon the events that transpired that evening.
Second is the simple fact of Mr. Schmidle parentage. His father, as noted above, is the deputy commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. Given the conspiratorial propensities of many within and beyond the Muslim world, Schmidle’s ties to this organization by virtue of his father would recast any serious inaccuracy in his report as a U.S. military psychological operation to deliberately misinform the world about the operation.
The reasons for this are at least two-fold. First is the charge of U.S. Cyber Command itself, which in it the lexicon of the U.S. Department of Defense is “pulling together existing cyberspace resources, creating synergy that does not currently exist and synchronizing war-fighting effects to defend the information security environment.” While the organization appears dedicated to protecting cyber infrastructure, others may interpret its role as using cyberspace to spread disinformation.
Second, cynics may justifiably wonder what influence if any his father had in the article. Schmidle explains this to Farhi “’He knew I was working on it,’ the younger Schmidle says, ‘but we both decided it was best not to discuss it in advance. We wanted to maintain distinct lines of operation.’” I have no reason to not believe this. However, given that questions that now hover about his report will other readers be so inclined?
Finally, whether or not the shooter actually said “For God and For Country” is another important question that affects the way in which the United States and is citizenry are seen across the world. The conflict with Bin Laden has been waged in lamentably civilizational terms focusing upon the clash of Islam and the presumably non-Islamic west.
Since 9/11, countries with Muslim minorities have been gripped by Islamophobia with some states outl(aw)ing headscarves and minarets and others seeking to restrict the erection of new mosques. Anti-immigration concerns in Europe are thinly disguised efforts to deter future Muslims from migrating. Success in the war of terrorism seems to be equated with success in turning back the spread of Islam. Several states in the United States have even introduced ludicrous and shameful bills to outlaw Sharia.
How would a proclamation that Bin Laden was killed “for God and for country” be read in a place like Pakistan where the war on terror has been largely seen as a war on Islam and Muslims? If this was in fact uttered, as an American, I am saddened that eliminating the world’s most notorious killer was done “for God” first and country second. If it wasn’t uttered, such a gratuitous detail hardly helps the United States make its case that it opposes terrorists not Muslims.
A Story Too Good to Check?
Whether Americans and our allies like it or not, Pakistan and Pakistan’s populations are critical to U.S. interests. This will be true for the foreseeable future. Journalists have an important function: informing our publics. Journalists’ reportage shapes how Americans see their country abroad and understand the countries with which the United States engages. It shapes our support for war, for foreign aid, for particular bilateral relations. The U.S. experience with the Iraq war illustrates the extreme limits of how a supine and incompetent press became the vehicle to mobilize an angry public for an ill-conceived and unjustifiable war of choice. The United States will long pay the price for strategic error.
Journalists have an equally important, if less appreciated, role in shaping how the outside world sees us. With the internet, the entire world reads our press, watches our television and hears our radio broadcasts. Media hype and hysteria, xenophobia, Islamophobia and more quotidian issues of inaccuracy and incaution with handling sensitive pieces of information are for the whole world to see and to judge us.
With stakes this high, should not the standards of journalistic integrity be even higher? I should think yes. The New Yorker should immediately right this wrong by publishing an editor’s note disclosing the simple fact that he never interviewed the SEALS in involved in the raid.
(C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor at Georgetown University and the author of Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States.)
- Louis Armstrong ____________________
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