Makes you want to tear your hair out, doesn't it?

Anyone want to place any bets on how soon we see reports of a "provocative incident" in the Iranian's part?
Iokanaan in the Well | 02.10.07 - 8:46 am | #

Remember that this is the same New York Times that "dealt with" Watergate simply by having James Reston ask Kissinger if there was anything to the stories about a conspiracy behind the break-in. Kissinger assured him that everthing was above board, and Reston apparently breathed a sigh of relief and dutifully reported back that Watergate was a non-starter.
Jordan Orlando | 02.10.07 - 8:48 am | #

Remember that this is the same New York Times that "dealt with" Watergate simply by having James Reston ask Kissinger if there was anything to the stories about a conspiracy behind the break-in. Kissinger assured him that everthing was above board, and Reston apparently breathed a sigh of relief and dutifully reported back that Watergate was a non-starter.
Jordan Orlando | 02.10.07 - 8:48 am | #

Greg Mitchell puts Gordon’s reporting in proper perspective: “NYT' Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims”

Gordon wrote with Miller the paper's most widely criticized -- even by the Times itself -- WMD story of all, the Sept. 8, 2002, “aluminum tubes” story that proved so influential, especially since the administration trumpeted it on TV talk shows.

http:// www.editorandpublisher.co...t_id=1003544369
zack | 02.10.07 - 8:54 am | #

While I've no great faith in Byron Calame, the Times ombudsman, his office does read its mail and this seems the perfect use for a polite and civil complaint process.
Who knows? He might just be interested in a bit of pro-active critique.
tiptop | 02.10.07 - 8:59 am | #

While the front page shills for war with Iran, it's truly bizarre that the Times editorial today laments the bogus links between Al Qaeda and Saddam from Feith and Wolfowitz, and includes this: the cooked-up Feith briefing had been leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine so Mr. Cheney could quote it as the “best source” of information about the supposed Iraq-Qaeda link.

While shameless yellow rags like the Weekly Standard are wilfully devoid of integrity, can't the Times publishers see how this administration is using them to beat the drums for war once again? When will they realize, assuming anyone in corporate media ownership wants to, that when it comes to claims by this administration, especially this administration, if it spews it's news is not a smart slogan to live by.

R. Porrofatto | 02.10.07 - 8:59 am | #

This type of spewing is for no other reason than to get the 30% base of mindless zombies that support bush fired up to start screaming for the heads of the Iranians and for WAR WAR WAR.

Strictly propaganda Glenn just as you said.

It is an attempt to "start the ball rolling" rhetoric for the supporters of death and destruction.

God forbid we try to negotiate with anyone.

This is more evidence of the proof that the "inmates are running the asylum" and proof that these killers cannot get their fill and will never stop.

The prospect of never ending war is not very appealing.
gabe | 02.10.07 - 9:08 am | #

Here's a suggestion. Can someone in this "community" please create a website listing New York Times advertisers and subsidiaries. And with it a "searchable download" that can go into palmtops. So if I'm in a shop - or indeed online - thinking about purchasing this or that I can tap in the product manufacturer - or indeed the name of the shop retailing the product - and get an instant report back "has advertised in the New York Times". Or "has not advertised in the New York Times". Whereupon I'll act accordingly.

Come on you computer whiz kids who loathe what's going on as much as this ancient technophobe does...please get busy and help out here.

Many thanks.
A. C. Hachem | 02.10.07 - 9:12 am | #

Gordon is either being played by the Bush Administration, or he's become one of the numerous White House stenographers. Either way it's not pretty.
AkaDad | 02.10.07 - 9:21 am | #

Completely unforgiveable. Maybe they wanted to give the guy a second chance - but mebbe so they should have someone who knows the history vet his copy? And maybe, just maybe, think for 30 seconds? Honestly, this is just plain stupid.
Shell Goddamnit | 02.10.07 - 9:23 am | #

After reading Glenn's latest, I sent the following email to the Times:

[begin]

The "Times" failures in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq have been well documented. Sadly, your own acknowledgements of error came long after it was too late to do anything but wring your hands.

Today's front page article by Michael R. Gordon ("Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made in Iran, U.S. Says") shows that you are at it again.

Just as there were many people who questioned the Administration's claims about Iraqi WMD, and the illegality of an invasion WMD or not, so are there many credible sources who question the current claims being made about Iranian involvement in attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. Clearly, the "Times" has decided, again, to be a stenographer for the Bush Administration.

Please - is there anyone in your editorial department who can cast a cold eye on life, on death in the area of government warmongering?

How many times does the government have to lie, with deadly consequences, before the lightbulb goes on at the "Times"?

[end]

The email address is:
letters@nytimes.com

I hope all of Glenn's readers send them an email. Perhaps that will get their attention. Someone else suggested getting in touch with the ombudsman, and that would also be a good idea.

Last time they got away with it. Perhaps this time the public can see that they do not get away with it.

I am sick of it.
Joel Grant | 02.10.07 - 9:34 am | #

Shell: Honestly, this is just plain stupid.

Stupid, mendacious and provocative. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read it. If the NYT isn't in collusion with the neocons -- which to my mind has to be the only reasonable inference here -- its editor-in-chief simply has to be dumb enough to eat dirt.

He may be that dumb even if he is a shill, given that no one in their right mind would believe what Michael Gordon has written. Mind you, the accusation might very well be true, but there's certainly no way to determine that from the article itself, and every reason to believe it's a lie.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 9:36 am | #

Hi Glenn,

Meanwhile, the WaPo has a great story which, while not exactly saying so, implies scorn on the latest bit of White House butchery of facts.

You see, Iran has arrested two Al Qaida operatives. The White House line is that they only did so to derail U.S. claims that they are in cahoots with AQ.

The WaPo gives insight into how these anonymous and official leaks are conducted:

"Five administration officials were made available for interviews for this story on the condition that they not be identified. Other officials who spoke without permission -- including senior officials, career analysts and policymakers -- said their standing with the White House would be at risk if they were quoted by name."

And also notes:

"Since al-Qaeda fighters began streaming into Iran from Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, Tehran had turned over hundreds of people to U.S. allies and provided U.S. intelligence with the names, photographs and fingerprints of those it held in custody, according to senior U.S. intelligence and administration officials. In early 2003, it offered to hand over the remaining high-value targets directly to the United States if Washington would turn over a group of exiled Iranian militants hiding in Iraq.

Some of Bush's top advisers pushed for the trade, arguing that taking custody of bin Laden's son and the others would produce new leads on al-Qaeda. They were also willing to trade away the exiles -- members of a group on the State Department's terrorist list -- who had aligned with Saddam Hussein in an effort to overthrow the Iranian government.

Officials have said Bush ultimately rejected the exchange on the advice of Vice President Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,"

The "exiled Iranian militants" mentioned are the MeK, a terrorsit group who have killed US citizens and helped Saddam gas Kurds. The neocons rely on them for "intelligence" about Iran although much of what they say turns out to be false.

Great writing again, Glenn, even if Newshog still isn't on your blogroll.

Regards, Cernig
Cernig | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 9:38 am | #

To the grammar police, if any are lurking, that should have been:

...no one in his right mind...

in my last comment. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, I know, but even after fifty years I can feel my knuckles smarting again where my fifth-grade teacher used to smack them when I did that. (She used to make us diagram sentences, too.)
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 9:43 am | #

Watch for a reference made to this NYT article on the Sunday morning news shows as additional "proof" that Iran is a bad actor in Iraq. If it's in "the paper of record" even liberals must pay it attention because of the NYT's high editorial and journalistic standards.
Toby Tobiason | 02.10.07 - 9:49 am | #

Whenever you see these claims about Iran, apply Occam's Razor. If Bush did, here's the press statement he would give.
Cernig | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 9:52 am | #

Another ugly thought occurs to me. Unlike what happened in Iraq, when our occupation made it impossible to conceal the fact that no WMD existed, or had existed prior to our attack, no such embarrassing facts will be revealed in the aftermath of any U.S. attack on Iran.

Since we haven't the means to invade the country, and since our journalists will undoubtedly be embedded again, there'll be no way to know whether the Iranians were working on a nuclear weapon or not. Cheney and the neocon three-ring can say whatever they like about our grand success without fear of the facts contradicting them.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 9:57 am | #

sources in Tehran and Kurdistan disclose that, last month, two Iranian QW-1 and SA-7 missile consignments reached Iraqi insurgents allied with al Qaeda and one, radical Shiite Moqtada Sadr’s Shiite militia, the Mehdi Army. Israeli sources report the same anti-air weapons were delivered at about the same time to Hizballah units in Lebanon including the south.

Our military sources add that Iran’s arms industry has succeeded in replicating a quality version of the Chinese QW-1 and improved its electronics. It is 1.447meters long and packs 16.5 kilos of explosives. The IDF estimates that the first of these missiles used experimentally by Hizballah caused an Israeli helicopter to explode during take-off near the Litani River in the Lebanon War last summer.

Iranian markings have been erased from the equipment going into Iraq and Lebanon to suggest they were bought on the black market. Dated Soviet-era models of the SA-7 were indeed bought by Iran on Far East black markets and supplied to Iraqi insurgents and also pro-Tehran governors in western Afghanistan. Iran is preparing the ground for a Shiite insurgency against NATO forces there.

According to our sources, all three consignments to Iraq went through the North Iraqi Kurdistani town of Suleimaniya not far from the Iranian border. An Iranian clandestine center operates there like “the liaison center” the Americans raided in another Kurdish town, Irbil, last month. The Suleimaniya center operates with permission from Iraqi’s Kurdish president Jalal Talabani.

They weapons were smuggled in concealed compartments of trucks transporting building materials and iron from Iran for a Kurdish building company. After unloading their legitimate freight, the trucks drove on south up to the regional border where Iraqi insurgents off-loaded the missiles to their vehicles and distributed them to their networks in Baqouba, Ramadi and Tikrit – north of Baghdad and Hilla to the south.

In January, two-man teams of Iraqi insurgents and Hizballah operatives were trained in the use of the new weapons against American and Israeli helicopters as instructors for missile crews in Iraq and Lebanon. One crewman was taught to locate the target and help the second to aim. The training facilities were set up in Kermanshah and Qasr-e Shirin close to the Iraqi border.

Tehran is stepping up its provocations in reprisal for the US president George W. Bush’s directive to US forces to capture or kill Iranian agents, America’s refusal to release the Revolutionary Guards officers captured in Irbil and finally by the seizure last week of an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad.
soMebodY | 02.10.07 - 10:00 am | #

Glenn, OT but you got an honorable mention in a Townhall article written by none other that Patrick Hynes this morning. In a beautifully sweeping(under the rug)way he oversteps any of the revelent issues associated with the campaign blog consultant issue, and assigns to himself a humble halo of innocense. Just in case you didn't see it. : > )
Sandbar | 02.10.07 - 10:07 am | #

soMebodY thinks he's a CIA operative. If he is, I'd say he's in awfully hot water. Compared to finding a camera in a birdhouse, leaking this oughta get him at least 30 years in a hole in Kirghizstan.

On the other hand, if it's just the usual neocon horseshit, maybe McCain will give him a job as a campaign spokesman.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 10:07 am | #

Look, can we please, PLEEEEASE stop acting shocked and surprised when the NYT becomes a shill for whatever today's war being drummed up by the government is?

God, freaking, DAMMIT, they have done this for EVERY SINGLE WAR I have lived through.

Nicaragua was a threat to us. Had to kill 'em.

El Salvador was a threat to us. Had to kill 'em.

Guatamela was a threat to us. Had to kill 'em.

Angola was a threat to us. Had to kill 'em.

Mozambique was a threat to us. Had to kill 'em.

Afghanistan was a threat to us. Had to help them kill the Russians.

Noriega was a threat to us. Had to capture him.

Grenada was a threat to us. Had to invade 'em and overthrow their government.

Iran and Iraq were threats to us, had to help 'em kill each other.

Libya was a threat to us, had to bomb 'em.

Iraq was a threat to us the first time, had to carpet bomb 'em and starve 'em to death with sanctions.

Aristide was a threat to us. Had to let our military allies overthrow him, and then bring him back so that he could be removed from power again.

WHEN, WHEN WAS THE OCCASION WHERE THE NEW YORK TIMES PREFERRED DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE AND HARSHLY JUDGED RATIONAL ARGUMENTS OVER ADMINISTRATION PROPAGANDA?????

When have they ever lead on the issue of a war instead of belatedly following the precedent of those already struggling for the truth?

They ignored the falsehoods on the Vietnam War and had to be handed photocopies of the government admitting its lies before they would print what was obvious long before they were HANDED the Pentagon Papers.

They ignored the reports of the My Lai massacre until it had been out in print for a year in the alternative press.

FROM WHENCE COMES THIS FANTASY THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THE FOUNDING FATHERS' NOTION THAT CITIZENS DEMAND THEIR GOVERNMENTS PRESENT THEM WITH REAL EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS AFFAIRS?

I'm sick and tired of people acting shocked about this pattern of complete servility by this servile publication.
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 10:10 am | #

I've studied the matter and discovered an independent intelligence assessment that may be relevant.
Joe Propinka | 02.10.07 - 10:12 am | #

Excellent piece - (as always)

I am wonder how many IED's have been made from explosives from Al Qaqaa?

350 tons and not an ounce accounted for?

Then we have the "Tank Girls" under US protection? I am sure they have the uniforms and plenty of Iranian goods and explosives.

I think we are being played for a bunch of fools by our own MSM and government.

I no longer believe much of anything from the MSM because they have failed so terrribly and have not atoned for their complicity in the Iraq war and the domestic misrepresentations and manipulations.

The MSM is a corporate entity and profit is never a motive for truth.

Thanks GG - you rock!
capt | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 10:13 am | #

soMebodY's source for the above: Iraeli neocon online rag DEBKAfile.

DEBKAfiles "sources" in Iran? The MeK terror group, neocon Ken Timmerman's group and Israeli intelligence's propoganda arm.

DEBKAfiles reliability? NIL.

Regards, C
Cernig | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 10:19 am | #

capt! of cornblogging fame?
Neil | 02.10.07 - 10:19 am | #

El Cid:

What's shocking isn't the Times' predilections, or their past record, what's shocking is that they were caught doing the same thing so very recently, and haven't bothered to alter the pattern in the slightest, or even to use a different stenographer.

We know very well who they're in bed with. What's surprising, given the precedent of Viet Nam, is that they don't care who knows that they're lying. Add contempt to mendacity, and you've got a different ballgame. It's something to be concerned about, because it implies that the administration isn't concerned at all about domestic upheavals in response to their trumped-up war. That's different, and ominous in my opinion.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 10:25 am | #

The Gordon article in the Times has the same tone and tenor and spurious detail that appeared in Miller's reporting, in Ken Pollack's "analysis", and in the information provided by Feith's OSP.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
scory | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 10:28 am | #

When Plamegate/Traitorgate was first tantalizing us (it seems like half a lifetime ago), the possibility of taking down Turd Blossom and/or Big Time was the mechanical rabbit that made all us blog greyhounds run. So far, at least, that goal still seems out of reach, at least in the perp walk sense. But it became obvious to me almost a year and a half ago that Fitz was accomplishing another, equally important task -- lancing the boil on the national bum that is the Washington press corps.

Eric Boehlert @ Media Matters nailed the core outrage:

In a sense, it was Watergate in reverse. Instead of digging for the truth, lots of journalists tried to bury it. The sad fact remains the press was deeply involved in the cover-up, as journalists reported White House denials regarding the Plame leak despite the fact scores of them received the leak and knew the White House was spreading rampant misinformation about an unfolding criminal case.

soMebodY is a nom de plume.

for Tom Clancy.
Antifa | 02.10.07 - 10:35 am | #

What is troubling me is what's going on with tv news, which is where most of the public gets its "news" from. to a large extent, real tv news has been replaced with tabloid soft-news.

And look at how all the channels have pretty much interrupted real news coverage to obsessively cover Anna Nicole Smith's death. It's insane.

Joe Scarborough, who has been doing a decent job of trying to warn about where the administration is going with Iran, devoted his entire show Thursday to Smith.

I can't be the only one that remembers when this happened before. It reminds me of back in early '03, when the country knew more about Laci and Scott Peterson than it did about Iraq.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 10:36 am | #

I'm sick and tired of people acting shocked about this pattern of complete servility by this servile publication.

For some reason, whenever one posts an article crticizing a journalist or government official, someone feels compelled to show how sophisticated and hard-nosed they are by coming and saying: "This shocks you???? Is this supposed to be surprise???"

Check any blog - any criticisms made in any post - and you will see someone who comes and makes this comment.

Who said anything about being "shocked"? And what is the implication of the comment - that we should just refrain from criticizing the New York Times or pointing out their journalistic sins because it's what they always do? I really don't understand the point of this comment, yet it gets made on virtually every topic, with regard to every criticism, in every venue.
Glenn Greenwald | 02.10.07 - 10:38 am | #

public@nytime.com (Byron Calame-Reader Representative) executive-editor@nytimes managing-editor@nytimes
here is my contribution to the above:
to whom it may concern:
I have been a subscriber to Times Select since May 2006. Let me tell you why I will not be renewing my subscription. After reading the above referenced story, it is obvious to me that this writer is a flack for the war mongering agenda of the Bush administration. He offers no proof for any of his claims and identifies no sources from which he may have gotten his information. I believe this is the writer who, along with Judith Miller, was hugely helpful convincing many of your readers that we needed to go to war with Iraq. He is now doing the same with Iran.

I believe that those of you who are responsible for allowing this unsubstatiated drivel into your newspaper are really the ones responsible for the war in Iraq, the impending war in Iran, and the continuing coup d' etat by George Bush and his cronies.
頒tbob | 02.10.07 - 10:39 am | #

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac...i/ Laci_peterson

She died Dec. 02. I remember the details of "news" broadcasts on that story vividly. I remember hardly any news broadcasts from the period on Iraq. And at the time, I wasn't focused on the world of politics, so my experience of that is going to be what the bulk of Americans experienced it.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 10:39 am | #

Willaim Timberman,

I completely agree that sociologically it's quite interesting that at this stage of the game, the NYT is not simply jumping away from the troubled administration and allying with other skeptical upper class power sectors.

But it's also in line with their history.

Barely had the US war against Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian civilians calmed than the NYT began immediately backing the (Ford) administration's support of Indonesia's genocidal invasion of East Timor, and it would be two years later that the NYT began sh*tting itself over guerrilla and popular rebellions in Central America and Southern Africa against US-supported dictatorships.

Likewise, they helped hype the threat to America posed by the anti-Shah forces in Iran (this before the hostages) as well as freaking out about the growing 'threat' to the US as secular Afghanistan allied itself with the USSR, and 'we' had to do something.

So, really, NOTHING is new.

It is completely NOT surprising that the NYT would turn from their shame facedness over one scurrilous propaganda job for a war to supporting yet another new one.

In fact it fits 100% with their historical pattern.

The only new part of this argument, in some opinions, is that the possible consequences of a war with Iran are so great and so terrible that many upper class power sectors in the USA are actually frightened about the danger posed.

When do we learn? The NYT absolutely despises anyone who would in any way truly oppose or defy the interests of the US presidency. (And I don't really count the Israeli case because usually the US-Israeli disputes are at most, at MOST, over how tactically they can both screw over some other poor schmucks.)

The NYT is at the absolute edge of liberal hawkishness, though admittedly it seeks to clothe this in the serenest languages befitting its power -- why, the NYT is always read by the mightiest and most powerful.

It AIMS to be and in fact IS the daily newspaper of record for the US upper class / Presidency nexus, and takes its power as seriuosly as it believes such a position deserves.

No matter how many brown skins and 'hard liners' die for them, they will remain steadfastly committed to the liberal hawk view, because peace and real democracy are frightening and dangerous to them, and they remain constantly fearful that the rabble will challenge them and their masters.
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 10:40 am | #

Glenn,

I get it when I criticize Fox News. "Why don't you read a paper if you don't like Fox. Everyone knows its not news."

That drives me crazy.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 10:40 am | #

The mighty press (and the Democrats) cannot even prevent the 'surge'. Currently, approximately 200,000 soldiers fight for 'democracy' in Iraq [roughly US troops + foriegn troops + paid mercenaries (i.e. Blackwater)]. So, the President's solution is to add 10% more (20,000 troops). Even assuming these extra troops perform 100% efficient, things will merely get 10% better in Iraq. Will 10% be worth the continuing carnage of American soldiers? Don't look to the Democrats for help. They will sit idly by as they did when the gov't suspended habeas corpus, opened mail, banned the novel "America Deceived" from Amazon, stole private lands, conducted illegal wire-taps and continues wars in the Middle East based on a false-flag event known as 9/11. If the Democrats cannot stop the current 10% increase in this war, then they will never stop 100% of this war or the upcoming war on Iran.
Only remaining link (until the gov't pulls the novel off Google Books):
America Deceived (book)
Paul O | 02.10.07 - 10:40 am | #

If they've got the goods on the Iranians then the administration has to deliver the goods. Last time they crowed that they had the goods but they still haven't delivered. Froomkin is so spot on.
zenster666 | 02.10.07 - 10:41 am | #

I get it when I criticize Fox News. "Why don't you read a paper if you don't like Fox. Everyone knows its not news."

That drives me crazy.

Yeah - it's like saying: "Why are you pointing out the lie the President told yesterday? He always lies. This shocks you??? Is it supposed to be news that the President lies?"
Glenn Greenwald | 02.10.07 - 10:45 am | #

That fucking list by Froomkin is offensive. How the hell do journalists NOT know that?

How embarrassing for all of us to have Froomkin desperately try to get the profession off its knees. So disgusting.

"Grotesque" is a word the blogger used. It doesn't do the scenario the least bit of justice.

Jesus. Words fail me.
paradox | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 10:51 am | #

http://www.haloscan.com/comments...28424012/ #92392

This is off-topic, but in a round about way on-topic, am I the only one that thinks that Anonymous is either David Brock or someone that has read his work closely? The only other place I've seen what he's talking about discussed is in The Republican Noise Machine.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 10:51 am | #

Glenn,

Even though I'm the poster who posted the comment with which you disagreed, there's also an extent to which I agree with your response.

Why do I whine on your very own blog, which is doing the yeoman's work of stopping the propaganda thrusts, of being 'sick and tired' of this pattern of NYT warmongering?

Maybe it's that I fear that I am reading each separate incident of administration war mongering and fronting from the NYT as though it's an isolated incident, as though it's an aberration from their documented history. And it frightens me, it makes me afraid that after one scandal that someone would venture to trust them the next time. Or that someone would fail to support an independent alternative such as your very own blog as much as it needs so that we don't have to depend on lying warmongerers for the news.

Politically, perhaps that approach is wiser -- after all, if the truth is that the NYT always and constantly shills for every war, but you say this, you will be dismissed by many powerful people as unsophisticated.

For my sanity, though, and for the moment I will greedily focus on that, I'd like there to be some public recognition when there is a new criticism of the NYT's new support for a new fraudulent push to a war, that this is what they do, this is what they always do, that this 100% fits their pattern no matter who the editor is, no matter who the star reporters are, no matter who their major advertisers are.

So in deference I will admit that I don't exactly know for sure why I'm driven to repeat the "sick and tired" claim -- but I do know that I'm not alone, that my point is not wrong, and that it represents a simple part of what should be all American's sociological understanding of how their country works.

I do also know that the real story -- whether it be I.F. Stone, or Noam Chomsky, or FAIR -- is often published in the context of a counterreaction to major media lies.

So it's your choice to decide what's wiser, and I'll trust your judgement for you.

For me, I'll keep pointing out -- though I guess sometimes I forget that bloggers do read comments and thus things may sound more personally aimed than my general futile screams -- that the NYT shills for war, they always do, and so far I see no objectively measurable evidence from either performance, structure, or staffing that would suggest any different and new pattern.
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 10:52 am | #

This is the Wall Street Media at work. Keep those military industrial contracts "surging", keep those huge GE, Exxon, Haliburton profits soaring. Continue government borrowing (from Japan,China) to do so. Our economy is in full militarization mode. Stop the war machine and the economy collapses. Wall Street's making hay while the military industrial complex's sun shines. And their enablers are their wholly owned fourth estate.
nlacey | 02.10.07 - 10:55 am | #

I.F. Stone? Now there's a hard nosed investigator. The guy got to the bottom of a trial two thousand years old.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 10:55 am | #

Well, El Cid, neither Grenada nor East Timor had the potential for domestic consequences. War with Iran clearly does.

Tough as they were, both Viet Nam era presidents, Johnson and Nixon, couldn't be sure of the public at their back, and were clearly reluctant to impose domestically what they sought to impose with such outright abandon on that part of the rest of the world where they thought U.S. interests were threatened.

This Unitary Executive shit is new, at least the forces driving it so hard and so explicitly are new. GWB and Big Time clearly have nothing to lose personally by ignoring us, but the country does. That shit is very, very new. The paranoiacs who fear domestic detentions, martial law, etc., etc. may seem over the top, but only a fool would fail to notice that the way has been prepared.

I'm on record here as saying that I doubt we'll actually attack Iran. I still believe that to be the case, but I fully admit that my evidence for it is slim, and evidence to the contrary is everywhere you look. Still, the obliviousness to public opinion on the part of both the administration and the media does not bode well.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 10:56 am | #

EL CID- For me, I'll keep pointing out -- though I guess sometimes I forget that bloggers do read comments and thus things may sound more personally aimed than my general futile screams -- that the NYT shills for war, they always do, and so far I see no objectively measurable evidence from either performance, structure, or staffing that would suggest any different and new pattern.

I understand your point. Just look at my prior post, in which I quote Gilbert Cranberg making your very point - that what the NYT did pre-Iraq "were not an aberration. Similar failure is a recurrent problem in times of national stress."

But you have to provide evidence for claims like that. And beyond the general need to demonstrate the flaws of the press, there is a very specific - and, I'd say, extremely urgent - need to undermine the claims being disseminated to justify a war with Iran. Arguments need to be made on both levels - the more specific and more general - but to argue on the specific level is not, in any way, to suggest that the more generalized critique is invalid or that one is unaware of it.
Glenn Greenwald | 02.10.07 - 10:56 am | #

GE owns NBC. GE manufactures parts for Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin sells those parts to the military.

When the military goes to war, Lockheed Martin makes more money, then GE makes more money. When NBC News present information that might stop a war, GE doesn't make that money. NBC News can make money either way - it can get its rating up by covering something like Laci Peterson or Anna Nicole Smith.

The commenter said something about sociology. C. Mills wrote about this topic in the Power Elite. There need not be a conspiracy, just a convergence of interests and conflicting roles.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 10:59 am | #

Top story in the Trenton Times today is an AP story by Lolita Baldor:

headline: "U.S. Ties Iran to Violence in Iraq"
subtitle: "Gates says firm evidence points to role by Tehran"

Can there by any doubt whatsoever that the decision to attack Iran has been made and they're only holding off until some indication that the marketing campaign is having some affect.
.
pluege | 02.10.07 - 11:03 am | #

1. Our intelligence community appears to be in shambles. ANY intelligence, REGARDLESS of source (DOD or elsewhere) should be scrutinized intensely.

2. As the Pentagon's IG's report to Senate shows, the *process* through which intelligence products are produced, refined and evaluated has been corrupted by this administration. While Feith, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Tenet are gone, I see no reason to believe that the faulty and biased process created by them has been corrected.

3. Just as at the Libby trial, where all fingers are clearly pointing back to Cheney, so does this. I believe Levin's committee work will show that this separate and bogus intelligence channel(s) will lead directly back to the VP, god damn his eyes.

4. The Pentagon's IG report IS the smoking gun, in my opinion, but Levin's investigation will go much much further, through 2007 at least.

I just cannot put into words how distressing it is to see the willful mismanagement that has taken place in our intelligence affairs. If some generals' assessment that the "military is broken" is correct, then I believe the situation is likely even worse in the intelligence arena.
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 11:03 am | #

soMebodY is a nom de plume.

for Tom Clancy.
Antifa

I doubt it. Clancy is quite knowledgeable, even if he is just a fiction writer. He was quite skeptical about invading Iraq, but that's neither here nor there. Iran, or anyone else, doesn't have to send MANPADS to Shia insurgents. They've been there for awhile. The question is, what took them so long to start using them?
Missing Antiaircraft Missiles Alarm Aides

By Dana Priest and Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 7, 2004; Page A24

Several thousand shoulder-fired missiles -- the kind that could be used to shoot down aircraft -- are missing in Iraq, and their disappearance has prompted U.S. military and intelligence analysts to increase sharply their estimate of the number of such weapons that may be at large, administration officials said yesterday.

Some U.S. analysts figure that as many as 4,000 surface-to-air missiles once under the control of Saddam Hussein's government remain unaccounted for. That would raise the number of such missiles outside government hands worldwide to about 6,000...

But this "article" (propaganda) is about "Explosively Formed Penetrators" and why the Iraqis, who were buiding "nuclear weapons" can't be developing charges that are "generally cylindrical, fabricated from commonly available water or oil pipe" themselves.

This technology has been around since WWII.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 11:04 am | #

I haven't read through the comments yet but I have a one word response to the subject of your post....Blackmail.

Perhaps the threat of prosection for the actuall reporting that the NYT has done earlier has gotten them into a particularly compliant mood as the next noble narrative needs to be trotted out.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 11:04 am | #

Make that: This SIMPLE technology has been around since WWII.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 11:05 am | #

Isn't it now time that major 'news' media such as the NYT have the first responsibility to *prove* their accuracy and reliability, rather than being we news consumers' responsibility to first *prove* their unreliability or lack of accuracy?

Philosophically, all claims need to be proven.

But my claim that the NYT always shills for war is on its surface exactly what is realistically expected.

The notion prevalent among the news producers and pundits is that our default position is to assume that major wealthy institution existing to discover and print 'the truth'.

And therefore it is the responsibility of those who reject that default position to prove *their* case.

In a sane society, we would first logically assume that powerful institutions first serve other powerful sectors of society, and that any claim that they do not should be the controversial claim in need of proof.

Generally speaking.
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 11:06 am | #

I'd love to spend time here today. It's a do-other-stuff day. But, my two dinero thought is...Shame....

The base support press is to be shamed. They base their assessments about this war in the rich-oil-land of the Middle East etc., not on reason or pure intent motives. The "journalist" want the comfort of a cushion seat. The war arena is where their sick-Game is taking place. The spectacle is worst than a 3-Right-wing circus. The priveledged audience who come to pundit about the Grand-Show...armed sea-monster-boats, gladiatorial combats, formal White House banquet invites, blood strewn in big puddles...
It's a black tie eatery joint. And the main meal can be: hippopotamuses, snake vermilion, aromatic rotten guts, pro-war-pot roast, red-blood-gravy-- a blood letting drain from millions of innocent humans' so the fat-cats can gnaw on cold blooded Death-images of WHO gets to kill the most and get rich? And Who will have the most worms swirling 'round their putrid carcass when THEY finally get dumped in the grave. I often feel sorry for the maggots? Maybe their is (?) a reasonable 'notion' behind comming back and doing a gig-dance of Life again? Just a thought> They sure are doing the Death-Stomp and ignoring noble truth in this life. Out. Over. I gonna' find a boot and fill'er'up with honey Mead. Nothing else to do on Feb. 10th for the rest of my life?
clownsense | 02.10.07 - 11:22 am | #

LWM:

A simple shaped charge can be made from an old-fashioned sealed-beam automobile headlight, which is essentially parabolic. Of course, the explosive behind it has to have a carefully-matched detonation rate, etc., etc.

You're right, though. Virtually anyone in possession of a 65 year-old cookbook, in which the calculations have already been worked out, can make one. Provided you don't try to use it on the frontal armor of an Abrams, it can be surprisingly effective.

Such facts, though, aren't part of the current narrative, and no one is interested in them.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 11:23 am | #

Just when I think nothing could surprise me anymore- something does.

I am pretty cynical and even I thought the Times would not REPEAT their same mistakes.

I mean we know Gordon is a tool- I however was under the impression that Newspapers had a person called an EDITOR whose job was to make sure that things they published- especially on the front page- are not total crap.

Thanks for the great post.
Lauren | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 11:30 am | #

Following up on the sociology thing ...

http://www.publicintegrity.org/w...act=pro& ddlC=23

That's a link on GE and its military links.

From the left and the right, Chalmers Johnson and Kevin Phillips write about the way that the military-industrial complex is shaping/driving foreign policy. Nemesis, Johnson's new book, is excellent in this regard.

Now here's something interesting. In Sorrows of Empire, Johnson observed that Duke Cunningham and Duncan Hunter were bought and sold by the military/industrial complex (I'm 75-80% on Hunter, my memory is fuzzy and I don't have the book in front of me).

What's significant about that is that he wrote it a year or so before the Cunningham scandal broke.

But if you listen to the AM dial, there's a buzz on Hunter. He's talked about as a kind of dream candidate that probably isn't electable.

So I started looking at Hunter. If you think Bush is bad, its my opinion that Hunter as president would be a nightmare. He'd be far more willing to test Yoo's theory of an unanswerable president/emperor, and thus far more likely to provoke the sort of Constitutional crisis with the potential to unravel democracy. And he likes wars. He thinks Bush can go after Iran without the approval of Congress.

That's what the conservative movement would give us. It's crazy. Hunter as president is like someone trying to make Sinclair Lewis's vision in It Can't Happen Here come truer than it already has.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 11:38 am | #

Great post Glenn.

Here is an excellent interview of Gordon by Amy Goodman.

Here is a back and forth between Gordon and Michael Massing over his must read Now They Tell Us in the NY Review of Books.
thelastnamechosen | 02.10.07 - 11:38 am | #

"...how can this article possibly have been published?" Maybe it has something to do with the NYT being a failing business. The "Gray Lady" is just trying to sell newspapers. Next she may stoop to reporting on space aliens, two-headed babies and the like.... anything to generate revenue and, hopefully, profit may be the motive.
Bud Byrd | 02.10.07 - 11:38 am | #

Such facts, though, aren't part of the current narrative, and no one is interested in them.
William Timberman

Are you just becoming more jaded and snarky in your old age, or are you being serious? I can't tell anymore. Personally, I don't think Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public buy into this crap. But that's not really important because we won't be going to war with Iran (invasion). We'll just lob cruise missiles at them, and after we neutralize the key air defense systems, just stealth bomb them. I think Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public will be very angry, but not enough to do much about it until 2008.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 11:41 am | #

Another quote from Mitchell's piece at Editor and Publisher:

"Today, in contrast to the Times' report, Dafna Linzer in The Washington Post simply notes, "Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said serial numbers and markings on some explosives used in Iraq indicate that the material came from Iran, but he offered no evidence."

http:// www.editorandpublisher.co...t_id=1003544369
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 11:48 am | #

Our intelligence community appears to be in shambles

One of the goals of the Bush administration and the neoconservatives whom it gets much of its foreign policy advice from was to gut the CIA of dissenters by applying ideological litmus tests. Those that stick around in the intelligence community get the message that you come up with the "intelligence" that team Bush wants if you want to be successful.

The most egregious example of this was the pre-invasion CIA program of interviewing people associated with Iraq's previous nukes program about the current program. Every single person they got to said that there was no program (see James Risen's book on the CIA) yet this info wasn't even reported back to the White House, because the CIA was concerned with finding that there were nukes, not that there were not.

Getting rid of intelligence analysts that don't come up with the "correct" intelligence is a goal for neoconservatives like getting rid of the "liberal" press is a goal for movement conservatives.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 11:49 am | #

LWM: Are you just becoming more jaded and snarky in your old age, or are you being serious? I can't tell anymore.

Seriously? A bit of both. The public probably knows that the current gambit -- sophisticated anti-armor technology supplied by Iran -- is a lie, but knowing that someone is lying is not the same thing as knowing the truth.

Perhaps no one would get sufficiently exercised about a bombing campaign in Iran to threaten our domestic tranquility, but when the consequences began to be apparent, I'm not sure that would hold.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 11:49 am | #

William Timberman.

Your in good company. Cicero said he was getting more and more grumpy with the passing years. Age and wisdom go together like a horse and buggy...And also, Tomberman can also be a jolly 'ole Frier too. Ager turns sweeter than honeycomb too...That was put on the lips to tell another. (Homer)
clownsense | 02.10.07 - 11:51 am | #

The CIA and Journalism

Just some links to some information on the subject. It's been against the law for the CIA to use journalism jobs as cover since the Church Committee, I believe. I doubt it's a law that has ever been adhered to and I'm not suggesting the CIA is the only violator here. There is no way of knowing how many foreign or domestic journalists are working two jobs simultaneously, for any group, government or movement you can think of. Journalism is the perfect cover for any number of clandestine services functions, from intel gathering to info wars and propaganda and disinfo.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 11:52 am | #

The public probably knows ...

What is occurring is that a public is eroding, being replaced by factions and crowds.

The public that listens to NPR knows one thing, the public that listens to AM radio knows another. Same for the New York Time and News Max.

These are people living in different realities. I'm no relativist, however.

I happen to believe one reality is more valid than the other.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 11:53 am | #

Judy Miller as an embed with security clearance raises some serious issues about the press acting as a mouthpiece for gov't propaganda.
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 11:54 am | #

but when the consequences began to be apparent, I'm not sure that would hold.
William Timberman

That is the part of the narrative they do not think about and are not yet concerned witt or interested in.

It is a disaster they do not comprehend.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 11:56 am | #

mbf,

Yes, that is my understanding too. But you name Bush where, in my opinion, the name is definately Cheney. Cheney had history (bad history) with the traditional intelligence community from day one of this administration.

And some of his criticism--maybe even most of it--was deserved, imo. But the steps they have taken have made the problem worse.

And the whole point of the thing is that ANY god damn reporter worth his/her salt should be painfully aware of this--ESPECIALLY Gordon.
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 11:59 am | #

For Iraq, there was Feith's Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon. Wolfowitz was a clear point man selling the need for war.

Does anyone know if there is anything similar going on right now regarding Iran? Is there anyone equivalent to Feith or Wofowitz coordinating Iran propaganda (sorry, "intelligence")?
Bullsmith | 02.10.07 - 12:02 pm | #

from: USED TO BE...
from our local historic association Feb. publication of the past...

NEGROES for sale.
Will be sold, at public sale, on Saturday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, at the Tavern of Daniel Brewer.

A NEGRO WOMEN
and 6 children

Two or three of the children will be sold with the women; and the eldest separated. Due attendance and a reasonable credit will be given by the subscriber.

Call the agent. It's history. True.
clownsense | 02.10.07 - 12:03 pm | #

It was Gordon who co-wrote Cobra II with Trainor.

Extensive and in-depth interview with Gordon conducted by Harry Kreisler.

Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
LWM | 02.10.07 - 12:05 pm | #

Does anyone know if there is anything similar going on right now regarding Iran? Is there anyone equivalent to Feith or Wofowitz coordinating Iran propaganda (sorry, "intelligence")?
Bullsmith

Yes.

This has been another edition of simple answers to...
LWM | 02.10.07 - 12:07 pm | #

Bullsmith,

Exactly! Those are the questions that should be popping into reporters heads right now. Which is, I suspect, why folks like WT sound a bit despondent when it comes to today's reportage...
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 12:07 pm | #

Here's a link that may be of interest, given recent posts:

AP Joins Partner in New 'Citizen Journalist' Effort

Published: February 10, 2007 8:25 AM ET

http:// www.editorandpublisher.co...t_id=1003544373
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 12:10 pm | #

El Cid hits upon a point that deserves more attention in these contexts: the tendency of institutions to withdraw into the most pernicious sorts of institutional logic.
Joe Propinka | 02.10.07 - 12:10 pm | #

since we know for a fact that the US has been selling Iran airplane parts, I assume that if Iran every uses one of its fighter jets to attack us we will then attack.... Ourselves!
majkia | 02.10.07 - 12:13 pm | #

Apologies if this has been posted.

Bullsmith,

I didn't mean to be flippant, but yes. Rumsfeld still has an office in the Pentagon, doesn't he? And we are still paying him. For what, I wonder?

The Surge Pushers
The War and the New York Times
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

A critique of Michael Gordon by Alexander Cockburn.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 12:14 pm | #

The fact that right wing think tanks exist to both frame and provide talking points to the media explains some of the bias we are seeing. The Heritage Foundation has an annual budget of nearly $40 million dollars and a full half of that amount is dedicated to accessing and attempting to control the media. One of the clearest views I have received in understanding what Conservatives are trying to accomplish can be seen Here It is the Heritage Foundations annual report for 2005, you can clearly see that they want to frame our entire society and mold us into their vision. Townhall.com is published by the Heritage Foundation, and they issue op-eds in a factory like operation. Heritage also maintains a 24 hour hotline for the media and have Conservative talking points for every subject. I hope you can see this might be a temptation for the lazy reporter who doesn’t want to research their articles. The foundation also provides talking points to personalities who are appearing on talk shows. Add to that that the foundations ability to contact nearly every journalist organized by specialty and make sure they have the correct Conservative viewpoint for their upcoming articles. Then, every Heritage study is reduced to a 2 page synopsis and sent to every major newspaper editor in the country as an op-ed. When you recognize that Heritage is not the largest think tank out there, and that there are dozens of similar operations out there doing the same thing, it certainly gives pause for thought. Of course, there are plenty of left think tanks doing the same thing, but according to FAIR we are mightily outranked.
Jim Montague | 02.10.07 - 12:14 pm | #

Maybe it has something to do with the NYT being a failing business. The "Gray Lady" is just trying to sell newspapers.

It's a failing business, all right. I think most print newspapers are.

However, it appears that the NYT is attempting to accelerate this process by publishing the same sort of crap that lost them so many readers during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

It's as though they want to fail.

They're bleeding subscribers as it is. I agree that anyone who has a Times Select subscription may wish to let them know what the consequences for the pathetic excuse for journalism that this Gordon piece represents could be.

They lost my money over the Hillary Clinton front-page panty-sniffing 'article' they published a while back, and I emailed their ombudsman to let them know it.
Gentlewoman | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 12:20 pm | #

casual observer:

The relationship between despondency and age is this: the young and the middle-aged see only the coming battle, and are focused on what's at stake. This is altogether fitting and proper -- they have, or will have, children to nurture and protect. They can also imagine victory as well as defeat.

Age tempers you in this respect: it isn't about you. Whatever happens, whatever consequences are to be the part of those in the middle of life, you're already part of history, and your stake in the future is abstract at best.

This isn't a bad thing, especially when you reflect on how many have gone into the ground before you, and yet you know that the sun still glints off golden or ebony hair everywhere, and that the giggling innocents in the park are no fewer now than they ever were. The tragedies, too, are still with us, and will be. World without end, etc., etc.

This is more of a consolation than you might imagine when you'e young, but it's real enough.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 12:21 pm | #

El Cid:
What's shocking isn't the Times' predilections, or their past record, what's shocking is that they were caught doing the same thing so very recently, and haven't bothered to alter the pattern in the slightest, or even to use a different stenographer.
We know very well who they're in bed with. What's surprising, given the precedent of Viet Nam, is that they don't care who knows that they're lying. Add contempt to mendacity, and you've got a different ballgame. It's something to be concerned about, because it implies that the administration isn't concerned at all about domestic upheavals in response to their trumped-up war. That's different, and ominous in my opinion.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 10:25 am | #
They go to significant lengths to project that impression -- but a pair that vets and restricts the composition of their audiences when they speak to the "public" is hardly unafraid of the People. What they may be is too much the opposite -- thoroughly contemptuous of us, and fully aware of what it takes to maintain power over us.
Also the current political elite do put great trust in bread&circus diversions, with pretty good reason. I'm always a bit amazed when I talk to strangers in public places (Walmart's check-out line, a hospital waiting room, etc.) at how many people do focus on celebrity gossip. Why anyone focuses on Brittany Spears latest indiscretion without knowing about the credit report freeze law in their own state, or the upcoming property tax vote for the parish (county) library system -- I'll never get it. If I crave a vicarious sexual thrill I won't lie to myself about it, and I'll find better sources than the MSM.
Fluffy | 02.10.07 - 12:31 pm | #

WT, I believe we should take a lesson from most traditional societies--the old agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers--where the elders are viewed as the repository of experience and wisdom.

Including useful comments about scorpions, and shaped charges...
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 12:35 pm | #

LWM,

Rumsfeld's still "consulting" certainly. And Gates seems more than willing to push the Iran boogeyman, much as he is pushing the canard that debate=aid to the enemy. He's a loyal soldier. But is Iran his baby? I have no idea.

I haven't heard of a specific operation or office in charge of Iran the way that there was a clear parallel intelligence operation set up to end-run the normal organizations and stovepipe whatever looked sexy staight to Cheney and Rumsfeld. If Rumsfled is actually involved in ginning up Iran provocations, as you suggest, you'd thank that would newsworthy. Enquiring minds want to know. So how come the NYT isn't enquiring. The most shocking line in the article is where the author assures us, via his anonymous sources, that of course none of these accusations against Iran are meant to pave the way for military action. Heavens forbid. War is the last option with this President, don't'cha remember?

One of the most disappointing things about the NYT piece today is that it tells us NOTHING about who might be cooking intelligence and/or how they might be doing it. Given Iraq, given the Pentagon IG's testimony re: Feith, given as you say the fact that even Rumsfeld's still on the payroll, you'd think these would pertinent questions to explore.

Long story short, I'm still wondering who has replaced Feith and Wolfowitz? Who are Cheney's pointmen on Iran?
Bullsmith | 02.10.07 - 12:36 pm | #

This Gordon character is a bully and an asshole. Check out this interview with Amy Goodman from March of last year:

http://www.democracynow.org/arti...06/03/17/ 160232

Unlike Judith Miller, who despite her profound mendacity at least admitted that the Sept. 8 2002 article was a mistake, Gordon is explicitly and arrogantly unrepentent about that specific piece. He interrupts Goodman constantly and refuses to answer her questions directly, telling her she doesn't know how newspapers work, etc. Goodman and the rest of us know all too well how these cretins work, I'm afraid.
Vartan7 | 02.10.07 - 12:37 pm | #

....you're already part of history, and your stake in the future is abstract at best.
This isn't a bad thing, especially when you reflect on how many have gone into the ground before you, and yet you know that the sun still glints off golden or ebony hair everywhere, and that the giggling innocents in the park are no fewer now than they ever were. The tragedies, too, are still with us, and will be. World without end, etc., etc.
This is more of a consolation than you might imagine when you'e young, but it's real enough.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 12:21 pm | #

This theme runs through many of your posts. At ~64 you are no longer young, but you are young to be seeing life this way. Your life does not appear to be this utterly vicarious yet, judging from what you write about your activities.
I'd rather rage against the dying of the light in all its manifestations -- and I hope to hell I feel that way still 20 years from now.
Fluffy | 02.10.07 - 12:40 pm | #

Sent him a complaining email.

What is it with the N.Y. Times? They see to have Judy Milleritis.
George | 02.10.07 - 12:41 pm | #

the manipulation of the news and complicity in the crimes of the cult of republicanism by US corporate media are staggering.
.
pluege | 02.10.07 - 12:44 pm | #

Glenn (from the post):

Given the very ignominious history of Gordon and the NYT concerning the administration's war-seeking claims, how can this article possibly have been published?

Welfare for Dubya-butt-sucking journalists. Needed to keep welfare for corporate giants flowing.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 12:48 pm | #

It never ceases to amaze me how no one questions the logic of the whole Iranin 'supplying IED's' scenario. Why would they? The IED's blowing up US troops are in the hands of SUNNIS and when not blowing up US troops, they are busy blowing up Iran's fellow religionists, the Shiites.

Al Qaeda and Iran loathe each other, and Al Qaeda is working out of SUNNI areas.

The government is run by Iranian allies, and is backed by Shiite militias. Right now the 'surge' is concentrating on Sunni neighborhoods--we are doing the milita's (and Iran's) work for them. Lots of noise is made about 'cracking down' on the Shiites, but watch it NOT happen--at least as long as the current government sits in The Green Zone.

So why would the Iranians be supplying their allies' enemies, and try to prevent us doing their dirty work? It makes no sense.

Even if proven that 'stuff' is coming in from Iran, that doesn't prove the Iranian government is supplying it. Why not the shadowy MEK, who certainly don't want any allies strengthenting the regime in Teheran
by forming a 'sister state' next door?

And of course, NOBODY is asking about SAUDI support of the Sunnis--far more plausible, given their anti-Shiite anitpathy, porous border with Iran, and THEIRD DIRECT THREAT TO DO SO regarless of our wishes.

No one wants to look at the Saudi angle, of course.
twit | 02.10.07 - 12:53 pm | #

twit | 02.10.07 - 12:53 pm

Take a look here, plus the few comments.

http://highclearing.com/index.ph...2007/02/10/ 5928
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 12:56 pm | #

Unlike Judith Miller, who despite her profound mendacity at least admitted that the Sept. 8 2002 article was a mistake, Gordon is explicitly and arrogantly unrepentent about that specific piece. He interrupts Goodman constantly and refuses to answer her questions directly, telling her she doesn't know how newspapers work, etc. Goodman and the rest of us know all too well how these cretins work, I'm afraid.

Vartan7 | 02.10.07 - 12:37 pm | #
***************************

Gordon and his employer, the NYT, are news producers, akin to manufacturers (and for the moment I mean this in the literal sense, not 'manufactured news' sense).

We are news consumers, at least in the immediate sense of reading or not reading the NYT.

Many journalists, editors, and pundits frequently argue that we consumers (citizens) accept shoddy and harmful products because of the excuses given to us by themselves, the producers.

Rather than responding to the informed complaints of their consumers, they choose to condemn the consumers' ignorance of the production process.

If I buy a DVD player, I should realistically expect that it should play DVD's on my television, rather than, say, immediately melt and cause a fire which destroys my living room.

Reasonably I am more immediately interested in the quality (or dangerousness) of news corporations' products than I am interested in their narcissistic tales of their production processes.

If I were asking for something impossible -- that my DVD player levitate my car, or that it should play movies directly out of my imagination -- then their excuses about their own production process may be interesting.

At this level, though, it is not.

I would like to be able to demand that the news producers actually do what we reasonably might demand that they do: produce news stories which are reliable, accurate, measurably reflective of reality, and which address those topics which reasonable people would demand be addressed.

That they insist that we accept their shoddy and harmful products because of their ways of working is uninteresting and irrelevant to me.
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 12:57 pm | #

Cernig quotes the Wapo:

"Five administration officials were made available for interviews for this story on the condition that they not be identified. Other officials who spoke without permission -- including senior officials, career analysts and policymakers -- said their standing with the White House would be at risk if they were quoted by name."

Like most maladministration "leaks", these statements are serving the political interests of the maladministration, and are likely being engineered by them, rather than being contrary to maladministration policy. They'd hardly get fired if they went public ... I mean, look what happened to that "former Hill staff...." -- um, sorry, Cheney's chief of staff. The maladministration will back them to the hilt until it becomes so hot that it's time to throw them under the bus to protect the president ... and Dubya.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 12:57 pm | #

"soMebodY" cut'n'pastes from somebody else's screed:

They weapons were smuggled in concealed compartments of trucks transporting building materials and iron from Iran for a Kurdish building company. After unloading their legitimate freight, the trucks drove on south up to the regional border where Iraqi insurgents off-loaded the missiles to their vehicles and distributed them to their networks in Baqouba, Ramadi and Tikrit – north of Baghdad and Hilla to the south.

Let me guess. To places "in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat...."

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:03 pm | #

Just sent the following to vs. bods at the senile, gray, neocon bag lady

Dear New York Times,

Yup, I've had my fill of it too. The Times' jiggery pokery - or is it the Times' or are you just the water-carrier? - as evinced, in its latest manifestation, by Michael Gordon's front page Judith Miller impression today (Feb. 10th).

So by way of brightening up your day, chew on this. I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend spreading the following far and wide on the internet.

The "following" being this proposal:

Here's a suggestion. Can someone in this "community" please create a website listing New York Times advertisers and subsidiaries. And with it a "searchable download" that can go into palmtops. So if I'm in a shop - or indeed online - thinking about purchasing this or that I can tap in the product manufacturer - or indeed the name of the shop retailing the product - and get an instant report back "has advertised in the New York Times". Or "has not advertised in the New York Times".

Whereupon I'll act accordingly.

The which non-sale is to be accompanied by a "ping" that goes out then and there - or later - to said advertiser, saying "you just lost a sale because you advertise in the New York Times and because the New York Times Pravda'd us about Iraq and now it's trying to Pravda us about Iran. And this is just to let you know that advertising in the New York Times doesn't work."

Or words to that effect.

Come on you computer whiz kids who loathe what's going on as much as this ancient technophobe does...please get busy and help out here.

We can do it you know. They can be Liliputted. Big time. Think of what Nader all by his lonesome did to GM all those years ago. Think of that "effect" - and then "exponential it". Exponential it because where there was one of him there are hundreds of thousands of us. And where he had, in effect, a cardboard megaphone...we've got cyberspace. We can go "viral" on them.

So, yes, let's go 21st century mediaeval on them. Let's give the New York Times its very own tanker spill mess to deal with. As Billmon neatly put it, Unintended...meet Consequences!
3rd & 33rd | 02.10.07 - 1:04 pm | #

"It's a failing business, all right. I think most print newspapers are."

Is this accurate? I seem to remember hearing that many papers were actually quite profitable. By this I mean well over 10% net profit/year, which is excellent margin. If I remember correctly, the recent mass firings at some of the majors' news departments was done not because they were not profitable, but because the profit expectation has simply become unreasonable.
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 1:05 pm | #

Fluffy, it isn't rage, not even in the metaphorical sense -- it's just what we do. What else do we know, after all? Still, it doesn't hurt to be aware of where you are. Just as Michael Jordan could whirl through the air, release a ball and have it go through the net with a certainty that it would take a supercomputer a week to calculate, we always have a sense of where we are on the arc.

Do you remember the popular TV show thirtysomething? I was in my mid-forties when it premiered, thankful to have escaped the previous decade with my sanity, but I remember how perfectly I thought it captured the angst, the self-centeredness, and the impulse toward gravitas which characterize that decade of life in our culture. Pitch-perfect it was, at least as in my experience.

So, I thought to myself: This is pretty good stuff for the mass media. The same could be said for The Wire or Children of Men today. These entertainments weren't made by the geriatrics ward, and yet for the most part they're true as a bell.

This is cause for hope, I think, as is blogistan in general, and the commenters here in particular.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 1:06 pm | #

OT:

Sad news, Nelson Polsby has passed on.
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:09 pm | #

It had been announced that evidence was to be presented by the administration last Wednesday that Iran was supplying IEDs to... somebody.
That was delayed.
Now Gordon says:
"The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad."

Strange time, the weekend. Ready for the talking heads on Sunday, but less real coverage. And Mr. Gordon plays his role to set the stage, and the New York Times puts him front and center.

What a whore, and what a pathetic excuse for a newspaper.

This seems part of an end-run around the delay in releasing the 'evidence' (due to doubts about its validity), more machinations in the 'intelligence community', and the 'press'.
Dick Durata | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:13 pm | #

Dick Durata | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:13 pm

Boy Howdy.

Which is Texan for "Word".
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 1:18 pm | #

Both NYTs and WaPo send in on a
daily basis bits and pieces of the
days "news" to me via Inet..surely
to many others as well. These "heads
up" insertions tend to pile up and
then get deleted. Often enough I dont
bother "opening them" as that likely
would prove redundant. This AM I did
read the NYTs entry about Iran--the
very same one GG chose to expand on.
Needless to say all the above comments
touch well enough on the duplicity of
NYTs having put this in the news of
the day mainstream. The scary aspect
being how many take the NYTs at its
printed word--don't bother to verify
what NYTs prints and go about telling
others that Iran is the ME black hat
villain killing Americans in Iraq. A
few more weeks of this tilt and slant
and any attack on Iran will appear to
be just deserts for Iranian villainy.
CNN over past days has tended to go
with this Iran is the villain spin and
China is given large doses of this as
well. Never mind what FOX is doing.
R.Ashen | 02.10.07 - 1:28 pm | #

New York Times Reveals "Reporter" Michael Gordon Actually Voice-Activated Tape Recorder

NEW YORK—New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller today announced that the paper's longtime staff writer Michael Gordon is not an actual person, but rather a voice-activated tape recorder.

"I'm not sure why everyone didn't figure this out before now," said Keller, pointing to the fact that, in Gordon's 26-year career, all of "his" stories have consisted entirely of transcribed statements by anonymous government officials.

According to Jill Abramson, the paper's Managing Editor, Gordon was purchased for $27.95 at a Radio Shack on West 43rd Street. Describing the situation as "a prank" that had "gotten slightly out of hand," Abramson said the paper had decided to acknowledge Gordon's identity because—after the tape recorder's front page story today, "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says"—there "was no place left to take the joke."

Keller described how he and Abramson "really had a good laugh" while editing the Iran story, which is based on the following sourcing...
LWM | 02.10.07 - 1:34 pm | #

Mr. Greenwald—as a first time visitor thank you for the excellent analysis of the Gordon piece. I also appreciate the intelligent follow-up discussion.

Taking a cue from Joel Grant, I fired off an email to the Times chiding them on Gordon’s regurgitated pap.


The Bush Administration wanted a war with Iraq and the Times did everything possible to make sure they got it.

Now the Bush Administration appears to be spoiling for war with Iran, and again the Times appears desperate to cheerlead for them. This is journalism? Instead of the “paper of record”, how about Pravda on the Hudson?

SoMebodY sounds like he’s gunning for Gordon’s job at the Times (or a Mossad desk job): “Our sources tell us a welter of novelistic details….”

One point that needs to be reiterated is that the U.S. is fighting a Sunni insurgency while propping up Iran’s de facto allies in the Green Zone. The idea that the Iranians are supplying their enemies, the Sunnis, with the weaponry to kill Americans is absurd and even Gordon and his sources avoid that howler.

The U.S. has had skirmishes with the various Shiite groups but they are far from an outright conflict. Indeed, why should the Shiite militias battle the U.S. while it’s doing the brunt of the fighting against their political and military opponents?

However, once the U.S. attacks Iran—and that is exactly where this is heading—there will be full-scale guerrilla war with many of the Shiite groups in Iraq, and Iran certainly will attempt to distribute the most lethal weaponry possible to attack U.S. forces.

So the Bush pretzel logic goes like this: the Iranians are supplying the Shia--our de facto allies--with lethal bombs; we need to protect our troops from these buggers; so let’s start a war with them as well. That will fix it.

And will the Cheney Administration be forced to support the Sunni Baathists again once it starts its war with Iran? Or will it just be a Hobbesian war of all against all? Is this the most Rube Goldbergesque version of “divide and conquer” that any colonial power has ever cobbled together?

It would be hilarious if not so diabolically insane.

Fortunately, the Times is there to give it all a veneer of “credibility”. Give war a chance.
Randy G. | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:34 pm | #

"how can this article possibly have been published?"

Grey Lady down!

I am sure dissertations are being written right now detailing how this country's "Newspaper of Record" got debased into what it is today. And the WaPo is not far behind.

It is saddening, and given the polling kind of mystifying, but for reasons of venality or cowardice our national newspapers are insisting on transforming themselves into Pravda and Izvestia.

They are not straight out propaganda organs, you really can glean the facts by reading the NYT and the WaPo every day. If you have the right set of corrective lenses. Which is where sites like this come in.

On the other hand the other side is viewing all this through a totally different prescription. Where we see Right Wing Bias they see Communist News Network. What we do about this other than simply plugging away in the Reality Based Continuum escapes me.
Bruce Webb | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:35 pm | #

No one wants to look at the Saudi angle, of course.
twit

All of this is for the benefit of the Saudis and Likudniks.
LWM | 02.10.07 - 1:37 pm | #

Apparently "Michael Gordon" is a voice activated tape recorder purchased at Radio Shack for less than $30 a long time ago. Keller has finally fessed up.
Retired Catholic | 02.10.07 - 1:43 pm | #

From soMebodY at 1:36 pm:

Gordon indicates that he cross-checked his story with intelligence analysts who used to be skeptical about claims of active Iranian involvement in the insurgency. He reports that they have completely changed their minds due to recent damning new evidence that was uncovered.

Gordon's creditability is about on the level of a certain 'journalist' last name Glass. You realize his unnamed 'analysts' might well be low-level clerks in the CIA with axes to grind, right?

Keep trying, son.
Iokanaan in the Well | 02.10.07 - 1:46 pm | #

soMebody - Like everyone else, you can put your comment here once - not 10 times over and over, reciting the same phrases over and over like Michael Gordon.
Glenn Greenwald | 02.10.07 - 1:49 pm | #

From Retired Catholic at 1:43 pm:

Apparently "Michael Gordon" is a voice activated tape recorder purchased at Radio Shack for less than $30 a long time ago. Keller has finally fessed up.

That can't be true. I mean, that had to be a joke.

Right?
Iokanaan in the Well | 02.10.07 - 1:49 pm | #

Hey, how about we demand that all government programs be based on secret information described by anonymous government officials?

"Next Space Shuttle To Be Made of Chocolate, Cost Only $2, Carry 1 Million People...say senior administration officials citing secret intelligence."

"Global Warming Actually Produced By Lustful Thoughts, Curable by Prescription Medication...say senior administration officials citing secret intelligence."

"New U.S. Health Care Plan to Self-Fund By Casino Gambling...say senior administration officials citing secret intelligence."
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 1:53 pm | #

Please email Michael R. Gordon by going to the NY Times article online and clicking his hyperlinked name.

This is my letter to Mr. Gordon:

You are not being responsible in your reporting. Do not do the Administration's bidding, nor become the mouthpiece for a run-up to another ill-advised war.

Please use your journalistic skills to dig out the facts for yourself. The burden of proof is now on the New York Times and the Bush Administration to back their stories with facts, not opinions.

After the horrible job that you and Judith Miller did on the pre-Iraq war intelligence, you need to restore your credibility. The American public will not stand for this Pravda-type echoing of whatever the Bush Administration and military officials want you to say.
wmholt | 02.10.07 - 1:58 pm | #

"reciting the same phrases over and over like Michael Gordon."


Almost made my coffee come out of my nose!

LOL
capt | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:58 pm | #

GG: Given the very ignominious history of Gordon and the NYT concerning the administration's war-seeking claims, how can this article possibly have been published?

I don't understand it, either. You'd think considerations of their legacy, if not their credibility, would have given them pause. Laziness? Maybe someone thought this was a big "scoop"? Gordon is very persuasive after a three-martini lunch? It's not as if there aren't competent editors there. Maybe someone owed him a favor, or he won an office bet?

This article should have raised huge red flags for anyone who's paid attention over the last few years. Let's hope their audience treats it with the skepticism it deserves.
Susan | 02.10.07 - 2:08 pm | #

"Judy's Back - And Punch Has Got Her!"

I hadn't heard the Times was staging its own revival of "Tootsie," with Michael Gordon in the Dustin Hoffman role.
spinozista | 02.10.07 - 2:08 pm | #

every single commenter here should be blogging this themselves and linking to the gordon piece. as well, they should be writing the ombudsman of the Times and Keller.

these are dogs. you teach them by smacking in the face with their fucking urine and guess what--they change their behavior.

just ask reed irvine.
Robert Green | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 2:08 pm | #

Gordon a tape recorder?

"You can't deny that's funny," said Keller

Ha. If true......You bet your spoiled, sorry ass I can .....

Outrageous. I'm ----ing tired of Republicans, Rush Limbaugh and now the NY Times trying to save their filthy hides by saying "it was a joke! " I'll tell you what is a joke. The fouth estate as it is "upheld" at the NY Times. It's time to get serious. This is unacceptable. These pricks in the media party set make me angry. They have no idea what their responsibilities to their country is.
s | 02.10.07 - 2:09 pm | #

I too just sent a scathing letter to the Times for allowing themselves to be used as a megaphone for the administration. Will be interesting to see if anyone goes on the Sunday shows to use this "leak" as so called evidence of their claims.
tdeco | 02.10.07 - 2:15 pm | #

Will be interesting to see if anyone goes on the Sunday shows to use this "leak" as so called evidence of their claims.
tdeco | 02.10.07 - 2:15 pm |

Excellent point. Tivo recorders should be set in every household, looking and waiting for those gems.

Which administration official will have the task of holding up the paper of record and saying "look, Iran is supplying weapons and training to the insurgents".

Meet the Press round table with Judy Miller, Mr. Gordon, I. 'Scooter' Libby, and VP Dick 'Shooter' Cheney. They then could explain four way gang bang only it's really a five way because the American people are about to get screwed.
Politically Lost | 02.10.07 - 2:25 pm | #

soMebodY | 02.10.07 - 10:00 am | #

All those things sound very scary.

But not quite as scary as the depleted uranium America has used to ruin Iraq.
Nortcliff | 02.10.07 - 2:32 pm | #

Clever piece by Jonathan Schwarz (below) where he strings together all the attributions in the Gordon article:

"U.S. Says...United States intelligence asserts...reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies...civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided...military officials say...The officials said...The assessment was described in interviews over the past several weeks with American officials...Administration officials said...according to the intelligence...According to American intelligence...Some American intelligence experts believe...they assert...notes a still-classified American intelligence report...a senior administration official said...according to Western officials...Officials said...An American intelligence assessment described to The New York Times said...Other officials believe...American military officers say...American officials say...According to American intelligence agencies...Assessments by American intelligence agencies say...Marine officials say...American intelligence agencies are concerned...Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week."

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt...ves/ 001315.html
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 2:32 pm | #

Whether these latest claims turn out to be true or not, the New York Times has an odd corporate personality. It seems honest, earnest - and expects everyone else to be. In other words, it's a gullible newspaper.

The New York Times, the biggest paper in New York, has no street-smarts at all.
Bengt Larsson | 02.10.07 - 2:33 pm | #

casual observer | 02.10.07 - 2:32 pm

Brilliant.
thelastnamechosen | 02.10.07 - 2:36 pm | #

... WMD story of all, the Sept. 8, 2002, 'aluminum tubes' story that proved so influential...

This sort of thing helps to groom future analysts who will come up with the "correct" conclusions.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/...ind- faulty.html

Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq, the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were probably meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.

From elsewhere in the article linked at Americablog.

The NGIC assessment of the aluminum tubes was described by the president's intelligence commission as a "gross failure." The agency was "completely wrong," said the panel, when it judged in September 2002 that the tubes Iraq was purchasing were "highly unlikely" to be used for rocket-motor cases because of their "material and tolerances."

The commission found that aluminum tubes with similar tolerances were used in a previous Iraqi rocket, called the Nasser 81, and that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had published details about that system in 1996, as had the U.S. Department of Energy in 2001. The commission's report said "the two primary NGIC rocket analysts said they did not know the dimensions" of the older Nasser 81 rocket and were unaware of the IAEA and Energy Department reports. The report did not name the analysts, but officials confirmed that the panel was referring to George Norris and Robert Campos
m.b.f. | 02.10.07 - 2:39 pm | #

Glenn Greenwald:

Every one of Gordon's sources are officials in the Bush administration, and all of them are completely anonymous, so one has no way to assess their interest, perspective, bias, or independence.

Gordon quotes “a senior administration official” but let’s just say he actually named the chief Middle East advisor who has been at the National Security Council since 2002. How might that read?

Elliot Abrams, convicted perjurer (and member of the now defunct Project for the New American Century along with Charles Krauthhammer, Micheal Ledeen, and other neo-con pundits who have long promoted that the U.S. implement regime change and pre-emptive strategies against Syria and Iran) has told the New York Times today that Iran’s role in supplying lethal weapons to Shiite militias is widely shared by our intelligence agencies.

Yes, it is better to have an anonymous source don’t you think?

Quoting someone who has been openly advocating regime change in Iran for years and who is a known liar (under oath) is probably not the best way to convince the public about evidence that no one else seems to have.

Maybe the New York Times should just come out and be honest about the authorship of this article:

By Elliot Abrams as dictated to Michael R. Gordon.

...
zack | 02.10.07 - 2:52 pm | #

Gordon to Goodman:

"I don't know if you understand how journalism works..."

http://www.democracynow.org/arti...06/03/17/ 160232

What an arrogant asshole.

George | 02.10.07 - 2:54 pm | #

By the way, everyone, on a different topic, the live C-SPAN coverage of the State of Black America conference (hosted by Tavis Smiley) ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN ROCKS.

I haven't seen anything this moving on TV, especially not for hours, ever. Ever.
El Cid | 02.10.07 - 3:00 pm | #

Congress should immediately act to clarify their position on any use of force against Iran, and John Dean says they clearly have the constitutional ability to do so.

Just stop this shit in its tracks.

http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/dean/...n/ 20070209.html
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 3:01 pm | #

Regurgitating talking points and press releases in a so-called news article isn't journalism, it's information laundering.

It's as pernicious as money laundering, and takes place for the same reasons.
SteveLG | 02.10.07 - 3:04 pm | #

I still think the NYT is acting under duress. Then again no one was holding a gun to Judy Millers head. But still, I can't believe this is the same paper that broke the NSA scandal.
Paul Dirks | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:08 pm | #

I used to love the NYTimes; now I loath it with a passion. Back in my pre-blog-reading days, I used to look up to them as the only source of non-administration spin-based news (how silly of me). I was immediately opposed to the coming Iraq war based on news I was reading from other countries, but when the NYT starting publishing Miller's swill, it gave me pause that perhaps there really WAS something to the whole Iraqi threat theme the Shrubites were flogging.

After more research (the internet is a wonderful thing), I began to suspect that the NYT's was being unwittingly played by the Shrubites. Then I read Ambassador Wilson's OpEd and thought, "wow, maybe the NYTimes can still be trusted". See how this works, folks? They mostly feed the administration's line to us, but occassionally run something that makes them look like they are actually independent and can be trusted to be telling the truth. It keeps more of us believing we can trust their news, making us the unwitting dupes, not them.

I no longer fall for this crap and I will never again trust anything printing by the NYTimes. To me they are worse than Faux news or Insight magazine because they still burnish their old image with an occassional nugget of truth nestled in their Whitehouse-approved garbage, and this leads to the less informed but-still-opposed-to-Bush thinking that if the NYTimes publishes it, then it must be accurate. This is how people who would be more strongly opposed to the actions of this administration are lulled into nonaction, because the "paper of record" has published it and put their nagging sense of doubt to rest.

Granted, as El Cid pointed out, we should have NEVER trusted them given their history with regard to supporting wars. As usual, follow the money and see whose bank account/position in the social/economic structure is enhanced; it will answer your questions every. single. time.
Make It Stop | 02.10.07 - 3:08 pm | #

But still, I can't believe this is the same paper that broke the NSA scandal.
Paul Dirks

Maybe it will help if we recall that they sat on that story for a year, until after the election, before "breaking" it.

It's much easier to believe now, isn't it?
SteveLG | 02.10.07 - 3:10 pm | #

Given the very ignominious history of Gordon and the NYT concerning the administration's war-seeking claims, how can this article possibly have been published?

Simple. Whether because he's true blue neocon himself, an insecure son of a powerful father trying to establish himself as his father's equal, or simply trying to gin up sagging newspaper sales, Pinch Sulzberger WANTS his precious NY Times to be the Iran War paper of record, and will do anything to make that happen.

Like his counterpart Rupert Murdoch on the tabloid/scandal sheet end of the media spectrum, Pinch wants to be the king of "highbrow" media, and is willing to do ANYTHING to get there. This is a dangerous and vacuous man who could care less about the consequences of his irresponsibility.

A better man would have fired Gordon over the Iraq WMD dishonesty, which was no less egregious than Jayson Blair, as he did Miller (but only under intense pressure). He did not. Instead, he has encouraged Gordon, however implicitely, to continue to write these bullshit stories that serve the administration's agenda.

I had the same exact reaction to this article as you did. It is grotesque in the extreme. Nothing about it is credible, including and perhaps especially the byline. The title itself is inexcusible, awkwardly worded in a way that makes its findings appear to be fact. Reading it is like being in a time warp gone horribly bad.

As Keith would put it: Michael Gordon, Worst Person in the World!

And I just hope that a REAL journalist is working on a series of articles that will totally rebut the credulous Gordon. Sy Hersh, Robert Scheer, I hope you are.
kovie | 02.10.07 - 3:13 pm | #

and what about this disclosure of "classified" information?
“All source reporting since 2004 indicates that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Corps-Quds Force is providing professionally-built EFPs and components to Iraqi Shia militants,” notes a still-classified American intelligence report that was prepared in 2006.

“Based on forensic analysis of materials recovered in Iraq,” the report continues, “Iran is assessed as the producer of these items.”

Was this selectively declassified? By whom? And which agency wrote it?
Mr. Gordon, Ya down with OVP? yeah you know me.
along | 02.10.07 - 3:20 pm | #

Mickey Kaus and The Columbia Journalism Review seem to miss the point. NYT ombudsman Byron Calame is pissed that Gordon expressed the opinion (my emphasis):

"So I think, you know, as a purely personal view, I think it's worth it [sic] one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we've never really tried to win. We've simply been managing our way to defeat. And I think that if it's done right, I think that there is the chance to accomplish something."

because it reveals an agenda and reiterates talking points that are embarrassing now and were embarrassing when parroted during Vietnam. Calame knows the job of an ombudsman is to give guided tours of the newsroom, not allow the public to see the actors undressed. (shivering willies)

To also add to SteveLG | 02.10.07 - 3:10 pm, The NYT only printed the NSA story because Risen's book was about to be released.
thelastnamechosen | 02.10.07 - 3:22 pm | #

"But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. "Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place."

He added: "We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous."

Deployment

Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made.

Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action.

In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/ s...2010086,00.html
casual observer | 02.10.07 - 3:26 pm | #

Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region

Sending Patriots into a war zone is like using Humvees to clear IEDs. They just don't work at what they were designed to do, and in fact are actually counterproductive because they create false confidence (and thus encourage aggression), and even when they hit, they just end up turning one big bomb into hundreds of little ones. My cousin was almost killed during the first Gulf War because a Patriot missed its mark.

Like the odious law, these missles are tragically misnamed.
kovie | 02.10.07 - 3:38 pm | #

But still, I can't believe this is the same paper that broke the NSA scandal.
Paul Dirks

Maybe it will help if we recall that they sat on that story for a year, until after the election, before "breaking" it.

It's much easier to believe now, isn't it?
SteveLG

It hasn't been the same paper since 1992. In 1993, Pinch cut the paper's workforce by 10% (hence the nickname). He's not his father, Punch.

THE INHERITANCE
Can Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., save the Times—and himself?
by KEN AULETTA
Issue of 2005-12-19
Posted 2005-12-12

...Sulzberger, whose business decisions and editorial judgment have sometimes been questioned by associates almost from the time that he took over from his father. Gay Talese, who, in the sixties, wrote the definitive history of the Times, “The Kingdom and the Power,” says, “You get a bad king every once in a while.”
Groucho Marxist | 02.10.07 - 3:40 pm | #

Exactly what kind of conventional weapon doesn't involve an explosive-packed cylinder? Napalm?
Stuart Eugene Thiel | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:40 pm | #

Exactly what kind of conventional weapon doesn't involve an explosive-packed cylinder? Napalm?
Stuart Eugene Thiel

C4
Groucho Marxist | 02.10.07 - 3:44 pm | #

It's particularly galling to see this happening as the cozy relations between the Washington media and the OVP is being exposed in the Libby trial.

This link, Keller on anonymity is very much worth reviewing and citing. This article apparently circumvents the rule on giving a reason for permitting a source's anonymity by provide no direct quotes from these sources.

This is a shameless piece of stenography. Who is this guy's editor? How can we find out?
jayackroyd | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:56 pm | #

Argh. The above link is to a pdf, which I should have noted.

It's included in this public editor column.
jayackroyd | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:58 pm | #

Gordon quotes “a senior administration official” but let’s just say he actually named the chief Middle East advisor who has been at the National Security Council since 2002.

He doesn't, unless I missed it, quote anybody off the record. The quotes are attributed either to people or to classified reports (no doubt declassified on the fly by Cheney).

As I said above I think this is done to avoid having to justify granting anonymity.

I think it is of paramount importance to our national security that the source of these leaks be identified, and that the intelligence committee initiate an investigation into who is leaking this information, and why.
jayackroyd | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 4:03 pm | #

Michael Gordon's Irresponsible Reporting

To: public@nytimes.com

I was astounded that the NYT, at this late date and given what we now know about the lack of credibility of the Bush Administration on matters of war, would publish a shameless piece of stenography like Michael Gordon's appaling article "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says" (Feb. 10, 207, Page One).

How, in the midst of what is arguably the greatest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history -- a war sold to the American people with official lies and distortions parroted uncritically, and even actively abetted, by a national press that seems to have forgotten how to fulfill its most basic function -- is it possible that the Times could allow Gordon to publish such a piece? Have your editors learned nothing? Are we now to await, in a few years' time, another institutional mea culpa from the Times like the one you were shamed into publishing about Gordon's and Judith Miller's appallingly irresponsible journalistic malpractice in the run-up to the occupation of Iraq?

It is simply inexcusable that the Times would publish an inflammatory article about Iran based entirely on anonymous official sources without any attempt to address, or even ackowledge, the evidence to the contrary or the Administration's ongoing manipulation of intelligence for its own ends. Both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have recently printed examples of actual journalism in which their reporters, using the techniques of research and investigation leavened with skepticism, have cast serious doubt on the official claims about Iran's supposed role in Iraq. In doing so, these newspapers have shown they are aware it is no longer 2003 and that they are reluctant to once again be used as a megaphone for unfiltered war propaganda. In contrast, by giving space on its front page to Gordon's slavish transcription of the official line, the Times has shown it has learned nothing from its own history as a willing tool of an untrustworthy government.

I am eager to hear the Times' rationale for this disgraceful performance. Perhaps that story could run on page one as well.
Luke | 02.10.07 - 4:09 pm | #

No one has pointed out that Michael Gordon is no pro-Administration shill. He is the coauthor of "Cobra II", an account of the Iraq war which is highly critical of Administration strategies.
soMebodY | 02.10.07 - 4:14 pm | #

Re: What possible purpose is served by shrouding these sources in anonymity in order to enable them to pass along these controversial claims with the appearance that Gordon has scored some sort of "scoop" by provoking candid "officials" to speak off the record? This is just Bush administration propaganda dressed up as a "leak" to induce Gordon and the NYT to excitedly publish this on their front page. Judy Miller anyone?

The answer is fairly obvious it seems to me; Gordon's sources probably have so little credibility, that, by not naming them, the allegations have more force than if attributed to a person known as not credible.

Glenn, you might just as well come out and say it; the NY Times is pursuing a policy advanced by AIPAC. Israel is reported to be openly lobbying all nations to pursue military action against Iran, and the NY Times is carrying water for them. The NY Times is not stupid and knows how to practice journalism as well as the LA Times or the Washington Post. In the absence of a clear statement from the NY Times explaining the reasons it is reporting in clear violation of journalistic standards, it is completely fair to conclude that this is so. The next thing you will see from the NY Times are angst ridden "should we or shouldn't we" attack Iran "analysis" coming from Tom Friedman (of course the conclusion will be that "we have no choice"). Those who pay attention to this sort of reporting now have no difficulty identifying the agenda and tactics. Let's hope that the Congress, other news outlets (some hope here with the McClatchy coverage) and Americans' revived skepticism as to all things "Bush" and "War" will stop this insanity before it is too late.
TJ | 02.10.07 - 4:16 pm | #

Another good interview with Gordon. (emphasis mine)

And in terms of an external enemy, his primary enemy that he saw, ironically, is the very same one that the White House now sees: Iran, which does have WMD programs.

This is very important. One reason Saddam was not willing to come completely clean on his absence of his WMD was he didn't want to reveal his weakness to the Iranians with whom he had fought an eight-year war. So, his policy was to comply with the UN inspections, let them go wherever they want to go, but never really come clean. A Republican Guard commander, Raad al-Hamdani, called this strategy "deterrence by doubt." Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector, later had a phrase for it. He said, "You don't have to have a dog to hang a sign outside your house that says, 'Beware of Dog.'" That's what Saddam was doing, but it backfired on him in Washington, because his efforts to preserve some ambiguity over his non-existent holdings of WMD were perceived by the CIA and by the White House as proof that he was hiding something.

So many talking points spewed so effortlessly. "...but never really come clean." At this point he is just redefining words.
thelastnamechosen | 02.10.07 - 4:22 pm | #

The AP has come out with an article informing us that “Lawmakers See Iran Explosives” but it does not say which lawmakers were allowed to see this evidence, and it quotes only one lawmaker Joe Lieberman, who said, "I'm convinced from what I've seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,"

So just who were the other lawmakers who allowed to see this evidence? And why are they silent? Is there not a single Democratic lawmaker that has anything to say about this evidence?

http://www.breitbart.com/news/20.../ D8N6TE880.html
zack | 02.10.07 - 4:49 pm | #

Bullsmith | 02.10.07 - 12:02 pm |
For Iraq, there was Feith's Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon. Wolfowitz was a clear point man selling the need for war.

Does anyone know if there is anything similar going on right now regarding Iran? Is there anyone equivalent to Feith or Wofowitz coordinating Iran propaganda (sorry, "intelligence")?

Read about Team B from the 1970s. The need for the Neocons to make their own supporting intelligence has been going on for a while. And, unfortunately, just like the OSP, they were just as persuasive to the Elite.
gaderson | 02.10.07 - 4:53 pm | #

Or perhaps they were too distracted by the Anna Nicole Smith story to pay attention? Tim Rutten has an interesting column in today's LA Times on how a story makes it to the front page of a newspaper nowadays:

http://www.latimes.com/entertain...viewed- homepage

What makes this of more than passing interest is that serious American journalism is in the process of transforming itself into a new, hybrid news medium that combines traditional print and broadcast with a more purposefully articulated online presence. One of the latter's most seductive attributes is its ability to gauge readers' appetites for a particular story on a minute-to-minute basis. What you get is something like the familiar television ratings — though constantly updated, if you choose to treat them that way.

From the same article that Zack linked is this:

Government officials say there is some disagreement about how much to make public to support the administration's case. Intelligence officials worry the sources of their information could dry up.

Could it possibly be more obvious what a bunch of WTF is going on here? Damn it!

Those rules of journalism that Glenn has posted from Froomkin have to be demanded into the discourse, and now.
kitt | 02.10.07 - 4:57 pm | #

"Who said anything about being "shocked"? And what is the implication of the comment - that we should just refrain from criticizing the New York Times or pointing out their journalistic sins because it's what they always do? I really don't understand the point of this comment, yet it gets made on virtually every topic, with regard to every criticism, in every venue.
Glenn Greenwald | 02.10.07 - 10:38 every time on every blog | #

Frankly, I'm shocked that every time a commenter is shocked about a piece by a blogger who is shocked (or otherwise) about something, the blogger gets all mad and reports how shocked he/she is.
A. Parable | 02.10.07 - 5:03 pm | #

No one has pointed out that Michael Gordon is no pro-Administration shill. He is the coauthor of "Cobra II", an account of the Iraq war which is highly critical of Administration strategies.
soMebodY | 02.10.07 - 4:14 pm

Um, there has been no lack of pro-administration neocons who have harshly criticized its tactics and even strategy while continuing to support its policies and agenda. E.g. McCain, Kristol, Brooks, Gingrich. This does not make these people any more credible. And god himself could come down from heaven and say that 2 + 2 = 5 and still be wrong. Credibility is measured on a case by case basis and no one gets a free pass.
Kovie | 02.10.07 - 5:17 pm | #

No one has pointed out that Michael Gordon is no pro-Administration shill. He is the coauthor of "Cobra II", an account of the Iraq war which is highly critical of Administration strategies.
soMebodY | 02.10.07 - 4:14 pm

Um, there has been no lack of pro-administration neocons who have harshly criticized its tactics and even strategy while continuing to support its policies and agenda. E.g. McCain, Kristol, Brooks, Gingrich. This does not make these people any more credible. And god himself could come down from heaven and say that 2 + 2 = 5 and still be wrong. Credibility is measured on a case by case basis and no one gets a free pass.
Kovie | 02.10.07 - 5:17 pm | #

It's deja vu all over again.

Every statement I hear out of the administration about Iran is giving me the same sense of foreboding I got in 2002-3 when they were revving up the engines for our little adventure in Iraq. I remember them denying back then that they had any plans to attack Iraq, just as they deny today that they have plans to attack Iran.

My only hope is that this time the American public is wise to their tricks. This new stenographic article in the New York Times doesn't do much to bolster that hope, though.

The more I read on this topic, the more I'm filled with frustration, anger, despair and a sense of helplessness. What can we realistically do to stop this juggernaut? Must we endure another calamitous war of choice started by a mendacious president as the press cheers him on and the Democrats sit on their hands?

(I mistakenly posted this in response to the wrong blog entry. Sorry for posting it twice.)
Jake | 02.10.07 - 5:25 pm | #

Anonymous lying scumbags in the Administration today revealed that....

That would make me feel better, but it might not change the outcome. Perhaps if the White House were ringed with 500,00 people carrying pitchforks and torches, a senior flunky would look out the window with a calculator, and tell a junior flunky -- one who didn't have quite so much to lose -- to run and mention it to Dick Cheney, who by any measure, is looking more and more like Marie Antoinette every day.
William Timberman | 02.10.07 - 5:32 pm | #

Oops! We invaded Iran!

How’d that happen?

Um, exactly the same way we invaded Iraq – lies, damn lies, and fraudulent New York Times reporting that supported those lies.

As Arthur Silber says, it was obvious to anyone who was awake during the propaganda build up before the Iraq War that the invasion was inevitable.

With the propaganda being catapulted onto the front page of the NYT today, it is just as obvious that the decision to attack Iran has already been made, the battleships are being moved for a reason, and all the denials are just for show “in an attempt to placate the rest of the world and to make the coming crime go down more easily with an unbelievably gullible American public.”

Lying us into a disastrous war not just once, but twice. As our glorious decider once said:

”There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, it's probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. It fool me. We can't get fooled again."

Oh, I wish for once this idiot was right, how I’d dearly love to believe that “We can’t get fooled again.”

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot...a-all- time.html
zack | 02.10.07 - 6:11 pm | #

Perhaps if the White House were ringed with 500,00 people carrying pitchforks and torches

An excellent idea, WT. In the meantime, I've sent off a letter to the Times.

It's especially galling with the Libby trial going on, and the Doug Feith shenanigans in the run up to Iraq coming out just now -- and they're pulling the same old sh*t all over again. Message to head: don't explode now, we might need you later.
Svensker | 02.10.07 - 6:16 pm | #

Guess I can't take my vacation to Florida.

In November 2000, went to Florida en route to a Caribbean cruise. By Wednesday, had people from around the world commenting on American politics and commiserating that Bush looked like the winner.

In September 2001, went to Disney and came home to planes crashing into buildings in NY and DC.

In Spring 2003, stayed at a friend's condo by St. Pete. Turned on CNN one night and got to see the premiere of Iraq II: Shock and Awe.

My wife wants to get away from the cold this winter. I'm planning on Alaska this time.
Fraud Guy | 02.10.07 - 6:16 pm | #

The most glaring omission in Gordon's piece is that the administration itself has more than once postponed releasing its purported case against Iranian involvement because its arguments were not adequately supported. And that's what they admit to not having.

The Times should let Gordon go independent. Let's see how long his "work" would stand up in the blog world.
mbbsdphil | 02.10.07 - 6:17 pm | #

The proxy media wouldn't be printing that garbage if they knew the shit for brains American citizen wouldn't eat it all up. You stupid idiots, you make dumbing down America a race to win. Look in the mirror, look up the Average American I.Q. score. Your so fucking stupid 9 out of 10 American's cannot find Canada on a map. American people are a dictators wet dream, easy to fool and dumb as a tool.
Disco forever | 02.10.07 - 6:24 pm | #

PS Dear God, please flood America off the map. Thank-You
Disco forever | 02.10.07 - 6:27 pm | #

From Disco forever at 6:27 pm:

PS Dear God, please flood America off the map. Thank-You

Or at least just Washington DC, Crawford TX, and Orange County CA.
Iokanaan in the Well | 02.10.07 - 6:32 pm | #

If the administration had hard evidence that Iran was responsible for more than one of the deadliest roadside bombs used in Iraq, it would be on every frontpage in America, and be put before Congress and the UN within days.

It does not. It has more than once broken its promise to disclose its "case" against Iran because officials admitted the evidence wasn't credible enough. (Presumably, it was closer to Mr Cheney's "one percent" possibility than what most of us would call credible evidence.)

Lewis Libby and Doug Feith have left the building. So who's network of pseudo-analysts concocted the story, manufactured the encounter with Gordon (alone?), and fed it to him in such a way that he convinced himself was "credible"? In any case, it was accomplished -- during the Libby trial! -- which puts paid to the wishful thinking that Mr. Cheney has used up his prescription for Viagra.
mbbsdphil | 02.10.07 - 6:44 pm | #

Not only is the 2/10/2007 NYT Michael Gordon article (concerning the claimed Iranian connection to the so-called Explosively Formed Penetrator IEDs being used in Iraq) often anonymously sourced, but the anonymity is made worse by the extreme looseness of the anonymous attributions - - e.g., Mr. Gordon's reference to "American officials, including some whose agencies have previously been skeptical about the significance of Iran’s role in Iraq" could be a reference to individuals in the Department of Agriculture, or a reference to officials who, in contrast to the agencies in which they serve, were never skeptical about the Iranian connection, but instead have been consistent advocates of the theory of Iranian involvement in Iraq - - used by Mr. Gordon.

Nor am I comforted, as Mr. Gordon seems to suggest his readers should be, by the fact that some of the "officials" in question made it clear that they were talking to Mr. Gordon only to describe a "threat to American forces in Iraq, and . . not . . . to lay the basis for an American attack on Iran" (emphasis added). Has Mr. Gordon forgotten that, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the usual "game plan" was for anonymously sourced intelligence placed in the media to be quickly utilized by administration spokespersons to ramp-up fear and anger? Has Mr. Gordon forgotten the now infamous citations to Judith Miller (sometimes joined by Mr. Gordon) pieces on Iraqi WMDs in the New York Times by Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and others, who would disingenuously lead into by those citations with something like "If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe the NYT?" Does Mr. Gordon seriously believe that any significant portion of a television audience, which might soon be informed that "a seasoned New York Times reporter has highlighted the linkage between Iran and the bombs which are killing our valiant soldiers," will also be told that the information in the NYT wasn't intended to be used in drumming up support for an attack on Iran?

In addition to the problem of anonymous sourcing, I think there are other questions relating to the reliability(?) of the sourcing of the Michael R. Gordon article. I have done a Google web search using one of the attributed sources used by Mr. Gordon, "Lt. Col. James Danna", and found that Danna really gets around when it comes to making comments which support Bush/Dept. of Defense positions (more accurately, fantasies), and has been doing so since fairly early in the Iraq war. Having read a number of the articles such a search uncovered - - my favorite is an article from the Department of Defense's "Defend America" on-line journal under a September 19, 2006 dateline (the direct link is http://www.defendamerica.mil/art...icles/sept2006/ a091906dg2.html) about successes in Operation Together Forward - - it seems quite possible to me that Bushian/Rumsfeldian spin has consistently been planted with dear old Lt. Col. Danna for regurgitation to whatever member of the press who seemed likely to get it in front of the American audience in a seemingly credible manner.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that the Neo-Con champions of war as a positive force for change have decided to embark on another campaign of lies and spin as a prelude to another hoped for conflict, but, Christ sakes, to think that the so-called "paper of record" hasn't learned any lessons from its truly tragic involvement in the build-up to the attack on Iraq, but apparently is continuing to operate at the "garbage in, garbage out" level of journalism, even in connection with issues of such importance.
Bob | 02.10.07 - 6:59 pm | #

American people are a dictators wet dream, easy to fool and dumb as a tool.

Right, as opposed to the fine citizens of France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Japan, North Korea, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala...

I guess that makes Canadians the most brilliant people on earth.
Kovie | 02.10.07 - 7:17 pm | #

With all of the underemployment, loss of job security, missing pensions, risks to Social Security, jobs moving overseas, crime in the streets, lack of affordable child care, poor insurance coverage, who has time to think about foreign policy....

Hey....remind me to stop having paranoid thoughts.
Fraud Guy | 02.10.07 - 7:36 pm | #

Another commenter pointed to Jonathan Schwarz's piece on this episode above, but I wanted to quote the first couple lines, which almost made me do a spit-take.

"NEW YORK—New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller today announced that the paper's longtime staff writer Michael Gordon is not an actual person, but rather a voice-activated tape recorder.

"I'm not sure why everyone didn't figure this out before now," said Keller, pointing to the fact that, in Gordon's 26-year career, all of "his" stories have consisted entirely of transcribed statements by anonymous government officials."

Of course Gordon and the Times are hardly the only ones that do this. Robert Fisk for sometime was carrying around a front pager from the LAT and quoting from it: "Officials say...intelligence officials say...senior White House officials say...officials say....American intelligence believes...etc." He would then quip that the LAT just change its name to "Officials Say."
Rojo | 02.10.07 - 7:50 pm | #

I think the article has been pulled from the NYT site. Can anybody else confirm this??? Is it just my computer???
Emily Sinclair | 02.10.07 - 7:59 pm | #

A pound of newsprint every day, Monday through Saturday and five pounds on Sunday! Did you ever run a newspaper and be required to fill all these pages? And now, you want quality reporting? You demand too much of la belle dame sans merci.

The NYT with its loss of advertising revenues to the Internet, loss of its position of the "nations news source" to Cable and the Internet is scrambling to slap its brand of journalism out there in the only way it knows how, by the pound. So it gets a few things wrong, pumps its dwindling army of readers enough wrong information to help start two wars, one senseless, one uncompleted while failing to call this Administration to task for ignoring the threat of the real terrorism ...so what? I haven't seen a blank page leap from their presses. They always have something to say. Unfortunately, much of it pertaining to starting wars is unconscionably wrong. So dies the NYT and All The News, Fit To Print.
Bud Byrd | 02.10.07 - 8:04 pm | #

I think the article has been pulled from the NYT site. Can anybody else confirm this??? Is it just my computer???

Certainly not! It just been rotated off the front page - a normal part of the news cycle. You can find it by clicking in the left navigation bar on "World", then scroll down to "Mideast".
soMebodY | 02.10.07 - 8:12 pm | #

I am confused.

An editorial (The Build-a-War Workshop--http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/ opinion/10sat1.html?em&ex=1171256400& en=59c2cf6514aeb4f1&ei=5087%0A)
by the NYT, from the same date, reads, in part:

"It is now up to Mr. Levin and Senator Jay Rockefeller, the current head of the intelligence panel, to give Americans the answers. Mr. Levin’s desire to have the entire inspector general’s report on the Feith scheme declassified is a good place to start. But it will be up to Mr. Rockefeller to finally determine how old, inconclusive, unsubstantiated and false intelligence was transformed into fresh, reliable and definitive reports—and then used by Mr. Bush and other top officials to drag the country into a disastrous and unnecessary war."

Did this editor read the rest of his paper and see Gordon's piece?
Fraud Guy | 02.10.07 - 8:44 pm | #

Complementary article about possible
and upcoming Bush2WH "lets have a war
with Iran" is found at zmag.org under
the Feb.10 entries...COUNTDOWN FOR
IRAN written by RAMZY BAROUD. Its
not going to go easy on the DC DEMS
if they chose to go all jello like in
face of Bush2WH attempt to make Iraq
Debacle look not so bad by mucking it
up with Iran. The DEMS should already
be slamming doors loudly shut and
raising the stakes on any Bush2WH
ideas or intents of "buying time out
to Jan.2009" by attacking Iran. The
DEMS are in the driver's seat now in
Congress and really need to steer USA
away from attacking Iran. The DEMS are
on probation and failure to erect some
solid firewalls against further war
startups by Bush2WH will be tantamount
to total prostration to Bush2WH/GOP
militarism/aggression and the blowback
of consequences resulting. With Iraq reeling
from and under the ongoing
massive load of open conflict tied to
religous and tribal divisions to pull/
push Iran into that cauldron is the
epitome of lunatic driven desire.
R.Ashen | 02.10.07 - 9:03 pm | #

Many thanks for a brilliant post, Glenn, and for many brilliant posts by others. As a Times print subscriber and therefore Times Select subscriber, I'll follow the patterns of many posters above and register disgust. I like the idea of targeting Times advertisers and will do so. Just a few additional points. First, even if what stenographer says is true, the Iranian shape charges are not a threat to the United States. They may go through Humvee armor, but they don't go across the Atlantic. A shape charge is not a weapon of mass destruction. There is no need to go to war over weapons that pose no threat whatsoever to the United States. Second, shape charges are common and capable of being made by anyone. My spouse served in CIA operations for many years and was taught to make them by the Agency. I'd like to see the evidence supporting tape recorder's contention that they require special equipment not possessed by everyone. Third, and much more basic, the premise of the article and of so many articles is that it's fine for the US to have certain weapons but not ok for anyone else to have them. Just what is the moral and/or logical basis for this? History is clear that everyone else has much more to fear from possession of weapons by the US than the US has to fear by possession of the same weapons by anyone else.
malcolm | 02.10.07 - 9:47 pm | #

The latest example in a frighteningly long list of reasons why the "Fairness Doctrine" should be a Democratic priority NOW...
If the corporate conservative media are to be held accountable for laziness in reporting and-or purposeful misrepresentation of facts, now is the time to stop this behavior, in anticipation of the 2008 elections and before it becomes an even more widespread tactic. Letting this type of behavior continue unchecked is as good as asking for more....
mikey | 02.10.07 - 10:48 pm | #

What about the American weapons that have been given to the Iraqi Army which are now showing up all over the place on the black market? What about these weapons made by us that can now be purchased by the very people who are killing our soliders?
Brian | 02.10.07 - 10:50 pm | #

American people are a dictators wet dream, easy to fool and dumb as a tool.
Disco forever

At least we don't jail people for repugnant forms of speech. Nobody's perfect.
Ann Outhouse, Daughter of Khan | 02.11.07 - 12:12 am | #

soMebodY:

No one has pointed out that Michael Gordon is no pro-Administration shill. He is the coauthor of "Cobra II", an account of the Iraq war which is highly critical of Administration strategies.

No one has pointed out that Gordon is a maladministration shill. He just plays one on TV.

What he is, is a credulous, gullible, and lazy dupe for the crapola they spew out, and not worth listening to, regardless of what he's saying.

Hope that's clear now.

Cheers,
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 02.11.07 - 1:45 am | #

Anybody catch Gates' "statements" on the topic earlier this week? Apparently "some" bombs "may" have had "some" markings on them that "may" indicate they "might" have been made in Iran, but he wasn't sure, hasn't read all the facts, didn't know anything, but was waiting for people in Baghdad to decide.

Better Bushist stooges please.
Baldie McEagle | 02.11.07 - 1:48 am | #

I could be wrong, but I don’t think there’s any rule that says ChimpCo can’t insult your intelligence more than once.

Joshua Norton | 02.11.07 - 4:25 am | #

Kovie, "Canandians the most brilliant"?, hell no. But we do know when it's time to admit a admistake and apologies are to be handed out.

You might as well put America next to the first four countries you put down on your fine list of empires that fell. You suck America. You refused to hold your self-elected politicians accountable and put them on trial in a court of law. Now it's too late to do so because you re-wrote the laws to keep you out of prison. Which is why they smile and glare at one another. And because you shit heads prefer wacking-off and sitting around living on fantasy Island while gay Israeli agents and hired prostitutes run around US government offices blackmailing you into the abyss so most of you will never figure a way out by the time they come to arrest you for calling George Bush an idiot. You need to take over countries that have your drug of choice. OIL. And if you can't have it, what more reason do you need to cause World War 3? And then nobody will have it. You are stupid, fat fuck'n whiney spoiled little brats stamping your feet screaming that the world has to listen to your demands or else. Well, FUCK YOU AMERICA!! FUCK YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT LIES OF LIBERTY AND FREEDOM!! Your US nazi's are using poor Iraqi people to bomb the streets of Iraq. You might think it's OK to rape and kill and dump DU all over their land. But they are not stupid enough to live under another American puppet government and so are leaving Iraq in the millions. Those who stay know you want them to bow to you and would rather die then accept your way of life. America is now seen by all as the country that kills it's own people to invade other innocent lands and there is no doubt you will again attack yourselves so you'll have the excuse to destroy Iran.

Your own government kills your Presidents and fly's planes into it's own buildings. With friends like you who the fuck needs enemies. So Kovie, the other countries and many more you didn't add to your list are shit holes now, but only because America and friends want them that way. We see how Mexico turned out and fuck if we're going to let you have your way with my country and your planned NWO union. Canadians know are own military was forced into Afghanistan by Cheney's corporate merc's to help keep the drug money flowing or your fucking maggot ass suckers would've bombed my own country. Your neo-con government is taking communism to a whole new level and America is the launching pad. Look out world, the war whore has landed.
Disco forever | 02.11.07 - 5:51 am | #

Disco forever | 02.11.07 - 5:51 am

Have a nice day!
casual observer | 02.11.07 - 9:09 am | #

Hey Disco, check your passport. You don't sound much like a Canadian to me.
William Timberman | 02.11.07 - 9:11 am | #

Panic at the disco,

- america bashing +1
- masturbation reference +1
- ricardo montalban reference +1
- homosexuality reference + 1
- israel reference +1
- prostitution reference +1
- referring to oil as a drug +1
- using shit and fuck +1
- world war 3 reference + 1
- use of all caps and exclamation points +1
- nazi reference +1
- rape reference +1
- depleted uranium reference +1
- new world order reference +1
- canada vs. u.s. +1
- jfk assassination reference +1
- saying airplanes hit the wtc and pentagon -5
- false flag reference +1
- "fucking maggot ass suckers" +1
- rhyme in closing sentence +1

Not a bad score, but you really took a hit on the airplane reference and not using the words "free fall" and "thermite."

Advice for the future-

The "all caps and exclamation point" category has a total of five points available with a bonus point for bringing the bold tag into the mix. These are almost compulsory and not bagging the full six points is going to allow someone who has not put in nearly the amount of work that you did to make up significant ground. DON'T LEAVE THESE ON THE TABLE!!!!!

Use the words demorat or rethuglican. Easy points.

Why use America when Amerikkka is sitting quietly in the corner waiting for a dance? Same for Cheney and Cheneyburton.

The Fantasy Island reference is good, but you missed the obvious--"...living on fantasy Island (da plane da plane) while gay Israeli agents..."

Combining 9/11 and midgets is pure gold.

You need more pop culture references. Immortal Technique is a good place to start. Remember, with google there is no reference too obscure.

Overall, a damn fine effort.
thelastnamechosen | 02.11.07 - 12:21 pm | #

thelastnamechosen, I'm sure there's a spot for you on CNNN's "Stupid Americans". Check it out and see why America is the biggest joke on the planet. It's no wonder shit for brains Bush is your President. He is the right man for the right people at the right time and really, really, really does represent you the best.
"effort"? Where'd you learn that word from? Guess some of you paid attention in school. You idiots can't find the countries on a map the people you want to kill off , but you sure as hell know what Homer Simpson's favorite food is.

lastname. You went for the authority expression-examination angle. If this were American Idol, wouldn't make it past the first +1.
Disco forever | 02.11.07 - 1:33 pm | #

Hey William, why don't you tell me what makes a good Canadian. What is a Canuck suppose to sound like? I know. Schucks, darn it all, mind my own business and just keep my stick on the ice. No? Wave at our American friends and invite them over for a few beers and pass'em the maple syrup?
Disco forever | 02.11.07 - 1:58 pm | #

I thought for sure you would like the "da plane da plane" line. Oh well.

MMMMMM DOUGHNUTS!!!

Isn't it interesting the favorite food of America's #1 pop icon is the same that fuels our oppressive police culture. Coincidence? I think not.

"Make those doughnuts with extra grease. This batch is for the chief of police"
thelastnamechosen | 02.11.07 - 2:17 pm | #

Yeah, I guess you have to look at with a sense of humor. We know there's nothing you can do about it.
I wonder though, will American's go nuts and kill a few more (give or take a few hundred thousand) when the neo-cons kill some more Americans on US soil? Then blame..whomever.
Wanna hear something really funny?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaa.. OK OK.
Instead of those Americans just holding hands (zzzz, boring) on their way down via the express route. Hee, heee. next time call those who get stuck up in one of them burning buildings that a remote plane just smacked into. Tell'em to flap their arms like they're trying to fly before kissing the concrete. And put images on the net of the big red bloody splashes turning into sparkling soda with teeth splitting and growing into giant windows that grow as they spin around making a circle. Smiling-happy Americans grab the huge teeth and write down numbers from 0 (for the real ass-holes) to 10 on them and hold up the numbers rating the divers performance. All done to the tune "free fallen" by Petty. I'm not a jerk though, hey, 1 is as low as I'd go.
Disco forever | 02.11.07 - 3:04 pm | #

And when you give me your clothes
And when we're lovers at last
Fresh air, perfume in your nose
There will be teeth in the grass

And when you give me your house
When we're all brothers at last
There will be food in our mouths
There will be teeth in the grass

And when there's nothing to want
When we're all brilliant and fast
When all tomorrow's are gone
There will be teeth in the grass
thelastnamechosen | 02.11.07 - 3:16 pm | #

Hey Disco Inferno,

Burn baby burn!

And I bet you're so proud of having voted for Harper, who clearly represents Canada's best "values".

I'm just glad that prescription drugs are so cheap up in Canuckistan seeing as you've forgotten to take your meds.

As for Canada being a model for the world, I have just one word: Curling.
kovie | 02.11.07 - 4:15 pm | #

Give me your hand
The dog in the garden row is covered in mud
And dragging your mother’s clothes
Cinder and smoke
The snake in the basement
Found the juniper shade
The farmhouse is burning down

Give me your hand
And take what you will tonight, I'll give it as fast
And high as the flame will rise
Cinder and smoke
Some whispers around the trees
The juniper bends
As if you were listening

Give me your hand
Your mother is drunk as all the firemen shake
A photo from father’s arms
Cinder and smoke
You’ll ask me to pray for rain
With ash in your mouth
You’ll ask it to burn again

-----
And now for something you'll really like...

Peter Dale Scott - JFK and 9/11
thelastnamechosen | 02.11.07 - 5:35 pm | #

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that Gordon gets $$$ for his Bush support.
gravitylove | Homepage | 02.11.07 - 6:47 pm | #

It's none of your business who I voted for, but it wasn't Harp seal Harper. Unlike one of our past Prime Ministers, who wasn't afraid to disagree with the shit for brains Bush's, Harper and especially that bald guy from Australia,( he's pecking at Obama cause he wants to please master Cheney before he arrives in Aussie land ) they have got their tongues so far up Bush's ass they can speak for Bush. I think you'll find most of us Canadians are not interested in show but substance, this is at the heart of everything we do. The vast powers have gathered to subdue your country and mine, but I guess most of us are weary of American's wearing blank stares over them stupid,perpetual smiles. America is now so dumbed down and intoxicated by death and war that the only thing keeping you from nuking the planet back to the stone age is your greed. I know there are alot of sharks circling the net, who prefer people don't focus on America the land of the lost. Not when Paris Hilton has another 2 years on her recording contract. Those who have fallen out of favour under the glimmer of America's holy eye, forced to stand alone after having to deal with puppets, appear to have triumped over the illegal invaders, preserved from "liberated" US corporate slavery. They have shown us the real America again.
Disco forever | 02.11.07 - 7:00 pm | #

MSM owners and sponsors could care less that 20% of Americans know articles like Gordons in the NYT are pure BS and propoganda to support this administrations agenda for another war. So long as we watch the news stations, read the articles and buy the products and services of the corporate owners of these MSM outlets and their sponsors, they will support the administration which has brought them off with tax breaks, reduced regulatory enforcement related to product, health, environment and workplace safety, etc.

Yet despite the government, MSM and corporations banding together in their conspiracy to suppress the voice of the citizens by keeping them in the dark and spewing out 1984ish like propaganda to support their policies, there is still a force that could be effective.

That force is the power of the consumer. A 10-20% hit on sales may make the corporations who sponsor news programs and own the MSM who participate in the propoganda take notice, especially when coupled with letters telling them why they are taking a hit. If and when a leader emerges to drive such a movement, then and only then will we see a change.

Until then, we can vent all we want on blogs or writing letters to the editor or congressman (democratic or republican), but nothing will change. The political-corporate-MSM alliance is too strong and too profitable to be broken w/o an economic incentive to break or weaken the alliance.
PTodd | 02.11.07 - 7:16 pm | #

Amazing. Why do people keep acting like this is some sort of mistake? The last question of this post has that sort of tone ..."how could this have been published."

It could be published because it wasn't a mistake. It could be published because by publishing it the NYT is doing exactly what they want to do, and accomplishing exactly what they want to accomplish.

The key fact to know is that in the aftermath of being completely complicit in starting the war with Iraq, no US news organization has made any significant change to its rules or proceedures.

Judy Miller is about the only one who was a part of the last propaganda campaign to get fired. And she wasn't fired for her pre-Iraq war 'reporting'. She was fired years after it was known she had lied, and she was only because she had become an embarrasment to the NYT. In essence, she was fired because her continued presence at the NYT would have hampered the continued ability of the NYT to publish pieces just like this. So they dumped her, and gave the byline to her former co-writer.

No editors at any news organization got fired. No news organization changed its rules or how it operates. (Mr. Fromkin's excellent advice is just that, the advice of one columnist. They are not the Standard operating proceedures of the Wash Post.) And in general, the people who helped with the 2002-03 propaganda are still treated as media stars. Do you know of any beside Ms. Miller who've left in disgrace?

And all of this is no accident. I'm sick and tired of hearing people on the left talk this way. Wake up and smell the coffee. The US news media are doing exactly what they intend to do, and they are doing it rather well. Please don't pretend its an accident, or a mistake. Its the considered policy of the heads of the organization.

What we need to do is to start using our own media, our blogs and our emails to counter this. It seems like we have a better chance this time around.

Of course, the big problem we have is that the Democrats are in power. They'll do nothing but talk while Bush starts a war that'll be a much bigger disaster than Iraq. If you want firm action to stop Bush, gawd we are in trouble if we expect the Democrats to do it.

And that's no accident or mistake either. Its not that the Democrats in Congress are incompentent. They, like the NYT are doing exactly what they intend to do. The role of the Democrats in American politics is to be the B team behind the Republicans. They step in and keep the Republican wars and other disaster as intact as possible when the people get sick of Republican rule. They have no intention nor desire to stop any of Bush's wars.
COBear | 02.11.07 - 8:47 pm | #

And all of this is no accident. I'm sick and tired of hearing people on the left talk this way. Wake up and smell the coffee. The US news media are doing exactly what they intend to do, and they are doing it rather well. Please don't pretend its an accident, or a mistake. Its the considered policy of the heads of the organization.

Um, I woke up hours ago and am currently on my third mug of coffee for the day, thank you. And, in case you haven't noticed, no one credibly believes that Gordon's psyops piece was an accident. I've contended for some time that Pinch, Keller, Gordon and others are knowingly if not eagerly complicit in spreading these lies. I wouldn't necessarily claim that it's because they're all equally devoted to the neocon/PNAC cause, though. I'm guessing that greed, ambition, weakness and professional and/or business survival have a lot to do with this as well. But I also wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them haven't been "Howard Bealed" (i.e. after the Ned Beatty NWO sermon).

Of course, the big problem we have is that the Democrats are in power.

Bigger than having the only operative alternative in power? I think not.

They'll do nothing but talk while Bush starts a war that'll be a much bigger disaster than Iraq.

Not so sure about that either. Feingold is set to introduce a resolution to defund the war by summer. He is not known for failing to keep promises. Obama has made similar noises. I expect house Dems to be even more aggressive in doing far more than merely talk. John Murtha's hourglass is running out of Iraqi sand.

But these words are probably falling on deaf ears, since you show every sign of being a concern and/or purity troll. I.e. a non-serious and/or dishonest commenter who is content to play Cassandra while others struggle to come up with actual solutions.
kovie | 02.11.07 - 9:06 pm | #

Hey Disco Duck,

Didn't you know that disco sucks?

Anyway, I find it curious that you absolve yourself of responsibility for the ascension of Herr Harper in your own neck of the woods and yet have the nerve to blame the regulars on this blog--the overwhelming majority of whom would clearly sooner go nude ice fishing in Saskatoon than vote for the likes of Bush--of being responsible for the Bush regime. Hell, I had to hold my nose voting for Hillary and Cantwell.

Yes, a scary percentage of Americans (not all of whom live in trailer parks and attend megachurches) do know far more about Paris Hilton and American Idol than about PNAC or signing statements. But certainly far from all, least of all the regulars here and on similar sites. And in American (and I'm guessing Canadian) politics, quantity does not necessarily translate into quality or power. Your case is not made.
kovie | 02.11.07 - 9:16 pm | #

Disco Duck,

You don't speak for me. Being smug about the arguable better features about Canada's political and media scene is all well and good, but it doesn't fix the NY Times and doesn't prevent a gratituitous war with Iran.

Why come here to antagonize people who would likely agree with you on many of the issues that bother you so much?

Seems kind of pointless, rude, and frankly un-Canadian.
Dan D | 02.12.07 - 12:10 am | #

Excellent discussion. I'll write the NYT with my annoyance too. Here's a couple of good links: One for best title, "All the stenography that's fit to print" and the other, a great analysis by Juan Cole of why it simply cannot be Iran supplying these weapons to the Sunni areas where the majority of US fatalities are occurring
.
Shortly after the war began, I remember the newscasts of the unguarded ammo dumps being plundered by all manner of Iraqis, for all kinds of weapons and ordinance. Perhaps they've just begun to use them competently.

Another point on the implausibility factor would be that for one to believe Gordon's article, one would have to think the Shia had started a broad new policy to kill Americans. Wouldn't that be a little at odds with our policy of arming, equipping, training and supporting the Shia government?

http://www.correntewire.com/ all_...ts_fit_to_print
http://www.juancole.com/
raised by wolves | 02.12.07 - 12:52 am | #

Dan D,

Well said, and I hope you realize that I was just poking fun at the other DD (whom I do not view as representative of Canada) and not your country. I live in Seattle and have been to Victoria and Vancouver a number of times (and years ago had been to Toronto) and find Canada and its people to be very impressive on many levels (not the least of which is that you're so polite). Consider yourself extremely fortunate that your leadership had the strength and wisdom to avoid joining us in our tragic misadventure in Iraq.
kovie | 02.12.07 - 1:00 am | #

wolves,

I agree, Iran supplying weapons to Shiite insurgents to kill US troops makes no sense on multiple levels. Gordon is an embarrassment to his profession and isn't fit to write obituaries for dead rats. His article is a case study in uncritical hack stenography. Does he even bother to leave his office? That countless people could die as the result of his hackery makes it infinitely more heinous and unforgiveable.
kovie | 02.12.07 - 1:09 am | #

".impressive on many levels"?

I'll bet you walk around with a gavel in your back pocket. I think if I ran into you I'd probably put my fist through the back of your fucking egocentric head in less than 5 minutes. Armchair warriors like you fuck'n idiots is why your kind allow chest thumping war criminals to invade and destroy countries and it's poor people. The whole world knows you planned all along to use Iraq as a stepping stone to attack Iran and the others because their unjewish,unchristian enough land is on your all knowing list. Christians killing for Christ, what would God think?
You cannot and won't save america from itself, unless you impeach satans lil'helpers NOW!!

The Supreme Court boasts "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW". Such lies should not go unpunished by all that is good and truthful.
That marble chunk of dental molding just above the figure representing 'Order' , fell over a year ago and is a bad omen for america. But when your thinking is as cracked as that liberty bell, I guess the blame lies elsewhere. The very stupid and lazy ignorant people who blindly follow their leaders and claim to be judge, jury and executioner [like the idiot who feels he should categorize in layers the folks he analyzes], you are no better. You are liars when you let them getaway with lies. So long as your needs are met life can go for the revived roman empire. That is, so long as you don't piss-off lady liberty. Polls show that the greatest threat is George Bush and his American people, but what they think doesn't really matter to war whore america. I know , you idiots can't figure out why people are mad at you, not when your so good and kind in your world. So If your waiting for the wrongs to right themselves, then my own country is in grave danger of being attacked by your government in the near future.
Disco forever | 02.12.07 - 3:06 pm | #

Disco,

I really, really think you need to go free Mummia or save those seals. How's that going, by the way?

I do not take soapbox moralizers like yourself seriously, who are quite content to spend a lifetime feeling that their moral superiority or nationality gives them the right to blanket judge and condemn others whom they don't even know. Ever heard of the term sanctimonious asshole?

You are not a serious person, but rather a perfect example of the sort of "purity troll" one occasionally runs into in both the online and real world, who are really just projecting their own profound self-loathing onto others. How convenient. I suggest that you look at yourself first before accusing others of not doing anything to stop this insanity.

Seriously, what have YOU done but condemn everyone else who doesn't rise to your own exalted and undoubtedly unearned level of moral purity?

Goodbye.
kovie | 02.12.07 - 5:51 pm | #

My country is not planting ten's of thousands of paid for killer merc's all over the world. Nor sending more and more fleets and aircraft that are about to attack others. All your government needs now is an excuse to use them. In 2003 alone, america the land of contradictions , supplied weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in active conflicts with more than half defined "undemocratic" by the state department's human rights. My country isn't responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of women and children in Iraq alone. Nevermind the millions more you have marked for death just so you can keep the oil flowing into your backyard.


I sleep with a clear conscience.
Disco forever | 02.12.07 - 6:26 pm | #

I sleep with a clear conscience.

I'm quite certain that the various native peoples whom your countrymen have treated so well over the centuries sleep well knowing that. It's so easy to consider yourself blameless and morally pure when the only person you listen to is yourself.

It appears to me that your sole reason for posting here is be able to pat yourself on the back for being such a wonderful person simply because you happen to live in a country that has no part in this war. I never realized that nationality was the sole determinant of one's moral goodness or evil. I can only wonder what your opinion of Germans is. Not that I particularly care.

Sleep well. Self-righteous simpletons always do.
kovie | 02.13.07 - 12:41 am | #

Putins recent opinions on american hegemony and it's goals for new world order, should be taken as a fair enough warning to the free world. And the sinister people who wrote Project for a New American Century ,they who own America, donot want true peace. America creates it's enemies so that it may establish a "Uni-polar world", which Putin defined as "one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master." Basically another 3rd Reich with the core values of "american democracies" reading like the book, mein kampf. The proof being you go "from one conflict to another without achieving a full - fledged solution to any of them."

A man long ago , who could see between the stillness of every thought. He knew just where hope for the world would emerge from. And not from the land of the devils triangle and the black waters off it's shores, [April 2, 2002] that marks the return of all that is pure evil.

"Through Russia comes the hope of the world" "Freedom, freedom" "That each man will live for his fellow man. The principle has been born there. It will take years for it to be crystallized. Yet out of Russia again comes the hope of the world."

Edgar Cayce
Disco forever | 02.13.07 - 2:29 am | #

Russia had learned its lesson. They know the group of satanic sons who gave them Bolshevism now control America. Living with hypocrisy and mass death for it's true lord , now has hi-jacked christian cells of false prophets who kill thinking they are doing God a service.
Disco forever | 02.13.07 - 2:35 am | #

I can't believe that I am actually being lectured on national morality by someone who views Valdimir Putin as a paragon of virtue. You are naive if you think that he is the alternative to Bush & Co. Or Chavez. Or Ahmedinejad. Or anyone simply because they are opposed to Bush & Co.

I share your anger and outrage at the neocons who have wrought this evil upon my country, Iraq and the world, and your belief that they must be stopped. But I do not share the direction that your anger and outrage appear to have taken you.

You might want to rethink your philosophical worldview. Bush is not America, and America is not Bush. And the answer to Bush is not yet another egomaniacal tinpot dictator who has nothing but contempt for his people and humanity.

Seems to me that you've learned nothing from the example of Bush. Not a damn thing.
kovie | 02.13.07 - 3:12 am | #

What I have mostly learned is that America tends to bite the hand that feeds it.
Disco forever | 02.13.07 - 3:28 am | #

Talking about Investigative Reporting:

The Date marking on the “Iranian Anti-Tank Rocket Propelled Grenades” shown in slide #15 of the officially released Power Point Presentation of the Sunday 02-11-07 by Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq is FABRICATED. It seems to be a forgery/phony. As it is seen in one of the pictures of slide #15 the line under the number marking”P.G.7-AT-1” shows the marking “LOT: 5-31-2006” as an apparent manufacturing date of this grenade.

Why this date marking LOT: 5-31-2006 is a fabrication? Because ONLY in United States it is customary to write a calendar date as “month-day-year”. The rest of the world (O.K. European centuries, Iran, etc.) is accustomed to write a calendar date as “day-month-year”. So I am speculating that this marking of Lot: 5-31-2006 is done by someone/entity that is accustomed with American way of writing a calendar date and not a European or Iranian way of writing a calendar date.

I picked this observation from the interview of Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations with Charlie Rose broadcasted on 02-13-07 and decided to double check it for myself. Also, beside this belligerent fabrication have anyone wondered why would Iranian arm factories put a “Return Address” of serial number and fabrication date which equate to “Made in Iran within the past year” on such sensitive weapons ????.....that were smuggled into Iraq….. By Iraqi hired smugglers???? Also, why these markings are in English and not in Persian?


P.S. used the Power Point Presentation Cited in Washington Post, in an on-line column of Dan Froomkin dated 12-02-06.
Or posted at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com.../?resultpage=1&
linda | 02.15.07 - 2:46 am | #

I think the American citizen should start to sue the MSM for reporting false and undocumented stories. Any lawyer interested in getting this started.
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portal web | Homepage | 09.08.07 - 2:48 pm | #