LITTLE DAVEY HERSZENHORN OF THE NEW YORK TIMES EXPLAINED TO THESE REPORTERS TODAY THAT HE SEES REPORTING AS RIDCULING AND DISTORTING REALITY AND "HIDING BEHIND OFFICIALS TO DO IT."
THIS EXPLAINS HIS SMARMY INTRO WHERE HE MOCKS DENNIS KUCINICH FOR PURSUSING THE PRESIDENCY IN 2008 AND FOR PURSUING THE IMPEACHMENT OF DICK CHENEY.
DAVEY ACKNOWLEDGES THAT IT PUTS HIM AT RISK OF BEING CALLED OUT; HOWEVER, "TELLING THE TRUTH IN THE NEW YORK TIMES GETS YOU FIRED!"
JUDGING BY HIS WORK, DAVEY WILL BE AT THE PAPER FOR A LONG, LONG TIME.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Staring with war resistance. Michael Massing offers an excerpt (at Salon) from an anthology entitled What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Faces of American Politics. Massing notes that the mainstream press has a very difficult time conveying the realities of Iraq including the vast number of Iraqis being killed and wounded by US service members. He notes books by former US service members tell more than the press about:
The prevalence of drug use among U.S. troops.
The ubiquity of pornography.
The frequency of stealing from Iraqis.
The widespread contempt in which Iraqis are held.
The routine mistreatment of Iraqi citizens during house raids.
The killing of innocent Iraqis at checkpoints.
The high civilian death toll in Iraq.
Among these recommended readings in the excerpt is Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale:
". . . Key observes that each military company in Iraq is responsible for dealing with the bodies of the civilians it has killed, and it fell to him to build a shack to hold the bodies of Iraqis slain by his unit until someone came to claim them." In addition, Key explains how they were discouraged from expressions of sympathy with the families picking up their dead and how he was warned and threatened for being seen as too sympethic. Key now lives in Canada with wife Brandi and their four children. His book has been optioned for filming.
Another war resister who went to Canada is James Burmeister and in June he broke the news on the kill teams. The kill teams of US service members purposely leave US property lying around to then have justification for shooting Iraqis. This isn't something a few enlisted thought up, it is a policy and plan coming from the top. Since war resiters get so little attention from All Things Media Big and Small to begin with, it's not surprising that only Canadian media covered those revelations. In this country Josh White and Joshua Partlow broke the story for the Washington Post on September 24, 2007. AP notes: "An Army sniper team leader charged with murdering three men will be tried today in a court-martial that is likely to highlight a classified Pentagon program in which snipers placed fake weapons as 'bait' to attract and kill enemy fighters." Paul von Zielbauer (New York Times) reports on Michael A. Hensley -- the team leader:
The baiting program was introduced to select members of the First Battalion, including Sergeant Hensley, in late January by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group, a Defense Department agency that develops secret methods of githing insurgents in Iraq, said Capt. Mattew Didier, the platoon commander at the time of the killings, in a sworn statement that has not been made public but was obtained by The New York Times.
"If we happened to see the individual take the items we would engage, to destroy the enemy," Captain Didier said in the statement, dated June 23.
Lawyers for Sergeant Hensley and the other snipers accused in the case have suggested the baiting program is relevant to their defense because it demonstrates the extent to which Army and Pentagon commanders approved unconventional methods of killing not only insurgents but also unarmed men of military age who were believed to be enemy fighters.
Again, Burmeister was discussing the program in June -- and yes, it is a program, it is not a few soldiers deciding to have 'kicks'. They were ordered to participate. That is among the reasons Burmeister decided enough was enough and he was checking himself out.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Other Items"
"Nothing being done in DC, not that anyone would notice . . ."
"sgrena"
"Joni Mitchell's Shine"
"F.C.C. public meeting on de-regulation this week"
"Bianca Jagger & Marty Trotochaud"
"Dave Lindorff, Mukasey, Third"
"Fred Thompson flies solo"
"THIS JUST IN! THOMPSON'S POSSE MINUS ONE!"
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
