Frontline: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late
Frontline’s “Bush’s War” on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players’ trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation.
Except for an inside-the-beltway tidbit here and there-for example, about how the pitiable secretary of state Colin Powell had to suffer so many indignities at the hands of other type-A hard chargers, Frontline added little to the discussion. Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team; nor was there any mention that the invasion was a serious violation of international law. But those omissions, I suppose, should have come as no surprise.
Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation’s history.
Despite recent acknowledgements from the likes of Alan Greenspan, Gen. John Abizaid, and others that oil and permanent (or, if you prefer, “enduring”) military bases were among the main objectives, Frontline avoided any real discussion of such delicate factors. Someone not already aware of how our media has become a tool of the Bush administration might have been shocked at how Frontline could have missed one of President George W. Bush’s most telling “signing statements.” Underneath the recent Defense Authorization Act, he wrote that he did not feel bound by the law’s explicit prohibition against using the funding:
“(1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq,” or
“(2) To exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”
So the Frontline show was largely pap.
At one point, however, the garrulous former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage did allude to one of the largest elephants in the living room-Israel’s far-right Likudniks-and their close alliance with the so-called neo-conservatives running our policy toward the Middle East. But Armitage did so only tangentially, referring to the welcome (if totally unrealistic) promise by Ahmed Chalabi that, upon being put in power in Baghdad, he would recognize Israel. Not surprisingly, the interviewer did not pick up on that comment; indeed, I’m surprised the remark avoided the cutting room floor.
Courage No Longer a Frontline Hallmark
Frontline has done no timely reportage that might be looked upon as disparaging the George W. Bush administration-I mean, for example, the real aims behind the war, not simply the gross incompetence characterizing its conduct. Like so many others, Frontline has been, let’s just say it, cowardly in real time-no doubt intimidated partly by attacks on its funding that were inspired by the White House.
And now? Well the retrospective criticism of incompetence comes as polling shows two-thirds of the country against the Iraq occupation (and the number is surely higher among PBS viewers). So, Frontline is repositioning itself as a mild ex-post-facto critic of the war, but still unwilling to go very far out on a limb. Explaining the aims behind war crimes can, of course, be risky. It is as though an invisible Joseph Goebbels holds sway.
Too Late
On Monday evening I found myself initially applauding Frontline’s matter- of-fact, who-shot-John chronology of how our country got lied into attacking and occupying Iraq. Then I got to thinking-have I not seen this picture before? Many times?
It took a Hollywood producer to recognize and act promptly on the con games that sober observers could not miss as the war progressed. Where were the celebrated “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)? Robert Greenwald simply could not abide the president’s switch to “weapons of mass destruction programs,” which presumably might be easier to find than the much-ballyhooed WMD so heavily advertised before the attack on Iraq. You remember-those remarkable WMD about which UN chief inspector Hans Blix quipped that the U.S. had one hundred percent certainty of their existence in Iraq, but zero percent certainty as to where they were.
Robert Greenwald called me in May 2003. He had read a few of the memoranda published by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) exposing the various charades being acted out by the administration and wanted to know what we thought of the president’s new circumlocution on WMD.
I complimented him on smelling a rat and gave him names of my VIPS colleagues and other experienced folks who could fill him in on the details. Wasting no time, he arrived here in Washington in June, armed simply with copious notes and a cameraman. Greenwald conducted the interviews, flew back to his eager young crew in Hollywood and, poof, the DVD “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” was released at the beginning of November 2003.”
So Frontline is four and a half years behind a Hollywood producer with appropriate interest and skepticism. (Full disclosure: I appear in “Uncovered,” as do many of the interviewees appearing in Frontline’s “Bush’s War.”)
Actually, the interviewing by Frontline occurred just a few months later. I know because I was among those interviewed for that as well, as was my good friend and former colleague at the CIA, Mel Goodman. I was struck that Mel looked four years younger on this week’s Frontline. It only then dawned on me that he was four years younger when interviewed.
Have a look at “Uncovered,” [http://www.truthuncovered.com
Safety in Retrospectives
It also struck me that producing a Frontline-style retrospective going back several years is a much less risky genre to work with. Chalk it up to my perspective as an intelligence analyst, but ducking the incredibly important issues at stake over the next several months is, in my opinion, unconscionable. The troop “surge” in Iraq, for example.
Only toward the very end of the program does Frontline allow a bit of relevant candor on a point that has been self-evident since Cheney and Bush, against strong opposition from Generals Abizaid and Casey (and apparently even Rumsfeld), decided to double down by sending 30,000 more troops into Iraq. A malleable new secretary of defense would deal with the recalcitrant generals and pick a Petreaus ex Machina of equal malleability and political astuteness to implement this stop-gap plan.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist/author Steve Coll, with typical candor, put the “surge” into perspective:
“The decision at a minimum guaranteed that his [Bush’s] presidency would not end with a defeat in history’s eyes; that by committing to the surge, he was certain to at least achieve a stalemate.”
Given this week’s fresh surge of violence as the U.S. surge is scheduled to wind down, even a stalemate may be in some doubt. But, okay, small kudos to Frontline for including that bit of truth-however obvious-and for adding the grim background music to its final comment: “Soon Bush’s war will be handed to someone else.”
Rather Not, Thank You
Intimidation of the media is what has happened all around, including with Frontline, which not so many years ago was able to do some gutsy reporting. Let me give you another example about which few are aware.
Do you remember when Dan Rather made his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, admitting that the American media, including him, was failing to reveal the truth about things like Iraq? Speaking to the BBC on May 16, 2002, Rather compared the situation to the fear of “necklacing” in South Africa:
“It’s an obscene comparison,” Rather said, “but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck.”
Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. “It’s that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often.”
The comparison to “necklacing” may be “obscene” but, sadly, it is not far off the mark. So what happened to the newly outspoken Dan Rather with the newly found courage, when he ran afoul of Vice President Dick Cheney and the immense pressure he exerts on the corporate media?
We know about the lies and the cheerleading for attacking Iraq. But there is much more most of us do not know and remain unable to learn if Rather and other one-time journalists keep acting like Bert Lahr’s cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz before he gets “the nerve” and courage.
For Dan Rather, the fear would simply not go away…even after leaving CBS for HDNet and promising that, on his new “Dan Rather Reports” show, viewers would see hard-hitting and courageous reporting that he said he couldn’t do at CBS.
Will it surprise you that Dan Rather cannot shake the necklace? I refer specifically to a program for “Dan Rather Reports,” meticulously prepared by award-winning producer, Kristina Borjesson. The special included interviews with an impressive string of first-hand witnesses to neocon machinations prior to the US attack on Iraq, and provides real insights into motivations-the kind of insights Frontline did not even attempt.
Nipped in the Bud by the “Dark Side”
Last year Borjesson’s taping was finished and the editing had begun. Borjesson’s requests to interview people working for the vice president had been denied. But, following standard journalistic practice (not to mention common courtesy), she sent an email to John Hannah in Cheney’s office in order to give Hannah a chance to react to what others-including several of the same senior folks on Frontline last evening- had said about him for her forthcoming report.
At that point all hell broke loose. Borjesson was abruptly told by Rather’s executive producer that by sending the email, Borjesson could have “brought down the whole (‘Dan Rather Reports’) operation.”
The show was killed and Borjesson sacked. For good measure, she was also accused of “coaching” interview subjects and taking their words out of context. Since neither Rather nor his executive producer would provide proof to substantiate that allegation, Borjesson took the unprecedented step of sending her script and transcripts to all her interview subjects, asking them to confirm or deny that she had coached them or taken their words out of context. Not one of them found her script inaccurate or said they were coached. She has the emails to prove this.
This sorry episode and Frontline’s careful avoidance of basic issues like the strategic aims of the Bush administration in invading and occupying Iraq are proof, if further proof were needed, that the White House, and especially Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance.
Some consolation is to be found in the good news that, in this particular case, Kristina Borjesson is made of stronger stuff; she has not given up, and was greatly encouraged by how many of the very senior officials and former officials she had already interviewed consented to be re-interviewed (since the tapes belonged to the “Rather Not” folks).
Now who looks forward to being re-interviewed?
Borjesson’s original interviewees took into account her problems with the cowards and the censors-and her atypical, gutsy refusal to self-censor-and went the extra mile. A tribute to them as well, and their interest in getting the truth out.
Borjesson is now completing the program on her own. Look for an announcement in the coming months, if you’re interested in real sustenance rather than the pabulum served up, no doubt under duress, by Frontline.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington, DC. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early sixties, then a CIA analyst for 27 years. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
This article originally appeared on Consortiumnews.com.
Ray
I am glad you wrote this, because it was exactly what I was thinking.
Love
Cindy
I wish we all would support great timely documentaries, such as “Unprecedented”, “Beyond Belief”, “Beyond the War” - and wish we would simply demand that PBS be more timely, too!! While I boycott all major mainstream news sources and believe others should, too - I also believe at the same time it’s important to agitate for them to change by doing real investigative journalism and giving up their cheerleading tendencies. I’m for a new abolition - of our corrupt political system, including the fourth estate. Until we reform it, we won’t really have democracy at all.
Corporate Media can no longer hide the truth! So, they take on the role of truth tellers, spinning the truth to be more palatable.
After careful research (reading sites like this) they know what they can get away with when they spin.
You have to trust yourself with the facts folks! If it quacks like a duck it’s probably the dog getting wagged.
Just wait one minute there, Ray and Cindy: Not all of us are immersed 24/7 in news, let alone the Iraq War. For me this 2 night program was an eye opener - I did NOT know much of what was revealed. If for you it was preaching to the choir - fine. Move forward. For me and millions of others who I HOPE were watching - it was a bigger wake-up call than I had had before.
Thanks, Frontline.
It should be a crime to hyjack our public airwaves to rob the people!
I suffered through the whole 5 or 6 hours of it, waiting for the Big Reveal. It never came. Frontline never came anywhere near scratching the surface of what motivates the neocons. Do we even know WHY Iraq was invaded?
So far in this whole 21st century nightmare, only Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine) has given us a rational interpretation of neocon motives. And only the Christian Science Monitor has come close to touching on the most relevant issue:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0919/p12s01-wome.html
Exactly Ray!
Five years into this war and this is all Frontline has? Of course they could’ve done more, but I look at media coverage of the war as I do the war. It’s not that the media try to do their best and come up short (the way apologists will claim the Bush administration did with pre-war intelligence) but they employ willful omissions and/or outright lies to advance an agenda.
Shame on me for thinking this Frontline piece would be any different from the media coverage of the last several years.
P.S. Hi Cindy! It’s great to see you posting on these boards. You have been a great inspiration to me and to many others. Thank you.
To cindysheehan: What are you doing hanging around here? Get back out there and do some campaigning
But seriously as an observer, I’ve often noticed how pbs becomes much more fearless when the subject of their expose, has for all intents and purposes, been already exposed. Why not save your pledge break money and opt for the bbc and aljazeera? They do much better reporting on US foreign policy (they even reported the material in the frontline show as it was happening. Now wouldn’t that have come in handy when it was time to vote!)
Nice to hear your voice again Ray. Of course, you are correct in your observations - Frontline was much like filming the aftermath of a car wreck, but forgetting to investigate why it happened. Interviewing some of the players was helpful - but they did not explain what actions led to the ‘accident.’ Of course, for those who have followed - we know it was no accident.
I also empathize with Juliann’s comments. I work in a secondary school and, sadly, few are really informed about the history of this catastrophe - teachers and students alike. And I can understand why ‘Bush’s War’ might seem revelatory to some - too many have not been personally touched by this war, that is exactly how the system intended it to be.
I really wanted to watch this and when I turned it on the first half hour or so was completely one-sided toward the Bush administration. I was gonna turn it off when it started to get A LITTLE BIT less so. I used to love Frontline a few years ago, but I think since Bush put his idealogues in charge of the Corp for Public Broadcasting and PBS it has gone downhill.
What I found most objectionable in the doc was their arguement that bush was not really a psychopatic liar and war criminal. He’d been influenced all along by cheney, led by the nose to do things he really didn’t want to do, that arguement that he was/is an honorable man. Horsefeathers.
It was fluff. Not only did it try to put lipstick on the piggish presidunce and his staff it slathered on some eyeshadow and rouge in an effort to maintain the illusion that the usa was a force for good in the world.
I’m waiting for the Antique Roadshow from downtown Baghdad.
NMBIll — So very truth: “It should be a crime to hyjack our public airwaves to rob the people!”
Namaste
One more voice saying Frontline came up with a really milquetoast report! Jeez people, why even bother! To allow that bush, cheney, rumsfeld were so sure about the WMD’s, and took so long to accept there weren’t any…they KNEW FROM THE OUTSET, there weren’t any! They manufactured those lies so as to implement the long standing, pre-9/11 agenda of The Project for a New American Century! Almost NO media voice EVER mentions that bastion of paranoid hubris. Why?! Frontline, (and many other news shows), should continually hammer home the fact that PNAC is behind the whole disaster. And part of that ‘hammering’ should be the frequent publishing of the signatories’names on the PNAC Statement of Principles!
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz Dan Quayle
Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
These people and many of their cohorts are ALSO terrorists, also criminals! Google “PNAC”, see for yourself, and spread the word! If PNAC’S grimy fingerprints are on it, we’re in trouble!
Frontline has done some amazing reports in the past. But they squandered some of the budget on this one.
When can we get to the real reason that America is in such a mess?
It’s simple stuff really –> WE HAVE BEEN TAKEN OVER BY A GANG OF CRAZY BULLIES!
Since most people aren’t very good at effectively dealing will that type of person, they will have their way until a “Higher Power” steps in …….. enter Nemesis, stage left.
A light-weight documentary….too much missing. Everything that Bush/Cheney/Congress have done in using this war to remove rights…breaking laws…cover-ups…
All through it the more informed citizen is left with what-about-this and you forgot to mention this/that.
It is the difference between saying someone is deceased… and someone was horribly mangled and died a horrible death in a treacherous attack…totally glossed over.
rebelnow….
McCain did say people were going about their normal business now in Baghdad, afterall….rolls eyes. (yeah the daily business of dodging bullets and DUIs, waiting for electricity, clean water, food, jobs….peace)
My greatest wish is that a small platoon of the usual suspects could be put together…dropped into Balad or Tikrit for a month or so, with only infantry weapons (no humvee or tank) without the brigade they have on hand to protect them…and let them experience the war first hand, rather than from the “war room” in the White House or Pentagon.
I think they need to experience it first hand…
They should also be exposed to DU for that time, as well…fair is fair.
I might have dozed off? Was there any mention of the UN weapons inspectors being in Iraq (finding nothing) when Bush told them to get out as he had decided to begin his shock and aweing of millions of children? Maybe then a follow-up clip of the Decider saying Saddam wouldn’t let the inspectors in was shown?
Do we even know WHY Iraq was invaded?
Sure. It was, purely and simply, a big part of PNAC’s agenda all along. Their entire modus operandi was to create a United States that would dominate the world via military might and create a New American Empire.
They were the result of people who thought that Bush, Sr. was a wimp for not marching into Baghdad during Gulf War I and overthrowing Saddam and putting an American puppet regime in his place. Well, they’ve managed to accomplish just that, but they were too inept to see that a). you need a plan to deal with insurgency and b). you need an exit plan. They had neither because they didn’t expect to need one.
Tenet convinced them all that it would be a “slam dunk” affair, but in all honesty, the main brains behind the entire thing were Rumsfeld and Cheney, PNAC members. They’ve wanted Iraq for years and years, and Powell tried to stop them but was powerless to do so. He was basically hit like a MAC truck by the heavy hitters and his once sterling reputation was left in tatters by his sham presentation to the UN on WMD’s.
Iraq has been in the PNAC crosshairs for years. So it should come as no surprise why we invaded. After all, in the PNAC white papers, they spoke of an invasion of the country years ago, but could not justify it unless America experienced a “new American Pearl Harbor”. Well, guess what? 9/11 was the perfect excuse that PNAC needed to go into Iraq and make a power grab.
Now, it should come as no surprise to any of you that the Bush and bin Laden families have been very close for years, as have the Bush and al Saud families. Also, 11 of the 15 hijackers were NOT Iraqi or Afghani, but Saudis. So what does that tell you? I see a very covert plan to make sure that 9/11 occured in order to justify the Iraq invasion. People think that this kind of conspiracy theory is crazy, but look, do some reading and connect the dots - it’s all there, the evidence looms large.
This administration has so much blood on its hands and I cannot believe that they have not been impeached yet and brought to justice. They have acted in a more than criminal manner and the fact that people have allowed this to occur without rising up and overthrowing these guys astonishes me. If Congress won’t impeach, We The People must. It is our patriotic duty, bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers.
We cannot allow these criminals to continue to destroy our country and our world. We can’t just wait them out, either. Who knows what parting shots they have waiting up their sleeves before they go skulking off to their ranchettes to live lives of comfort and ease with their bloody oil money while the rest of us starve and continue to pay record prices at the pump.
RISE UP! DO SOMETHING! DON’T JUST SIT THERE AND LAMENT THE STATE OF THE WORLD! YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE IT AND GET RID OF THE CRIMINALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE! DO IT NOW, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
Thanks Ray. You are, as always, succinct and on the mark.
Hope your personal battles are doing well.
There is a lot of truth in what Mr. Mcgovern says, and many of his pieces here on CD have helped us understand the duplicity of the neocon cabal. That’s why I was troubled by the manufactured impression (from “Bush’s War”) that it was all a case of incompetence and inflated egos, and bad intel.
Of course the permanent repositioning of U.S. forces into the region was 1st, and oil 2nd. Forget what Rev. Wright said; can you imagine anyone telling the truth that our brave soldiers in uniform are fighting for Exxon and BP? Or that we don’t care if Iraq was a sovereign nation that had not attacked or threatened us, we desired a base and they were too weak to keep us out?
But Exxon and BP stations are on every corner, so we all feel the connection.
Ray don’t be too hard on Frontline. Their documentary on the first Gulf War armored me against many of the lies surrounding the second coming of Bush. I knew it was all bullshit ’cause they showed what we did twelve years earlier. Iraq was a broken, battered stepchild of the cold war.
gin…
I don’t remember the UN inspectors being mentioned…but I might have missed that. It mostly concentrated on CIA information, or lack of to support the war.
Sally…
The government seems persistent in their refusal to impeach or prosecute…probably being blackmailed…like they tried to do diplomats before the war in order to get support for the war….
Reference:
The woman who nearly stopped the war
By Martin Bright
21/03/08 “The Nation”
It concerns a young woman who was a witness to something so outrageous, something so contrary to the principles of diplomacy and international law, that in revealing it she believed war could be averted. That woman was Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old Mandarin translator at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.
The US was ordering the intensification of espionage at the UN headquarters in New York to help persuade the Security Council to authorise war in Iraq. The aim, according to the email, was to give the United States “the edge” in negotiations for a crucial resolution to give international authorisation for the war. Many believed that, without it, the war would be illegal.
Gun was appalled by the email in two ways. First by the seediness of the operation: she believed the clear message was that GCHQ was being asked to find personal information that would allow Britain and America to blackmail diplomats in New York. But second and more importantly, she believed GCHQ was being asked to undermine the democratic pro cesses of the United Nations.
A report worth the read….
Unchained: Why give them weapons?
Conspiracy to commit murder is normally considered a crime. So what should we call conspiracy to commit mass murder? The crime is ongoing, and the MSM continue to support it.
The means to get away with massive crimes is to recruit as many as possible to participate. This is what happened in Congress, and it is what happened with the MSM.
Thank you for this article. I also watched the entire documentary and found that one word was consistantly missing: oil. In fact, even substitutes such as “resources” were conspicously missing from the discussion. At no time during the entire film, does one get any idea of why we actually invaded Iraq. It is obvious that those in charge (Cheney and Rumsfeld) knew that WMDs weren’t present in that they constructed the lies about their presence in the first place as well as the lies about ties to Al-Quieda. This film glosses over the illegal and criminal intents that cause the invasion in the first place and opts towards a littany of how mistake were made because of political in-fighting between the Pentagon and the State Department. This is a huge disservice to history and needs to be better explored than this documentary.
If only we could have Ray hosting a weekly PBS news commentary program.
He’s right about the relatively meek Frontline presentation. However it was still exponentially beyond what the public is fed by the corporate media. The media has decided Americans can’t handle the truth.
Otherwise, the networks would have informed us that we went to war in Iraq for oil, Republican lock on power, crony capitalism profit, neocon imperialism, and perhaps above all, the re-election of a “War President”.
Let’s hope with a less hostile new admimistration, PBS will find the courage to broadcast “Uncovered”.
gde…
lol….good point. OK, no weapons.
Come to think of it, with Cheney’s hunting skills, he might shoot the rest of the platoon himself….accidentally.
If you remember how we tried the Nazis for war crimes and crimes against humanity…and Sadam was hung for crimes against humanity…these guys should be strung up…without trial…at Gitmo. Add a few hours/days of the torture they think is acceptible as well.
Frontline failed to mention this:
February 24 2001, Powell said: “He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.”
And this:
April, 2001: Condoleezza Rice: “Saddam does not control the northern part of the country,” she said. “We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”
Every lying neocrazy warmonger whom Frontline treated with deference and respect should have be asked: how did SH go from weak and defenseless to the world’s most dangerous mushroom cloud maker in just seven months?
Truly the most pathetic and disheartening piece Frontline’s ever done.
What happened to “TAKE, HOLD and REBUILD”? What a wholesale clusterfuck the CONS have made of Iraq.
What struck me was how bull headed and ignorant of basic facts about Iraq the NeoCON’s were/are. And Bremer, I’m surprised he agreed to be interviewed. He bares the majority of the responsibility for the “de-baathification” of all the Govt posts, and disbanding the Iraqi army, which lead to the disasterous and fatal insurgency.
The fact that these idiots and criminals are still running our nation is testimony to the moral decline of American leadership and the complicity of the supposed “opposition party”.
“Courage No Longer a Frontline Hallmark”
This doesn’t directly address the Iraq war, or any of the War of Terror issues such as 9/11, 7/7, the Cole, etc., but it does address the mechanisms of media censorship: Connection between The Mystery in Your Milk and Spiked News
I don’t know if this is the hypothetical “Agentur of Zion”, the “Illuminati”, or something else, but there are clearly forces working within the system to restrict the essential flow of information.
“Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”
It has been said that “Truth is the first casualty of war”. Perhaps the reverse might also be True. 9/11 was an inside job!
The fascinating thing is that all of the people who saw through this from the beginning and made formal opposition to this disaster all along, have still been marginalized by the main stream media and all of the nuts who have been wrong about everything for the past six years seem to still be occupying choice seats on the news each and every night. Perhaps we should just boycott all MSM networks until they choose to stop being willing accomplises to this criminality.
SallyUUKent: “People think that this kind of conspiracy theory is crazy, but look, do some reading and connect the dots - it’s all there, the evidence looms large.”
Almost as crazy as 19 Arabs, mostly Saudis, who couldn’t fly a piper cub, coordinated by an Arab in a cave 10,000 miles away, executing flight maneuvers that a highly trained fighter pilot couldn’t pull off in a fighter jet, let alone a ponderous airliner, slamming airliners into three buildings, one of them the Pentagon, probably the most protected buildings in the world. I mean, come on! Prior to 911, try to sell that hack plot to a movie studio and they’d still be laughing you out of town.
Compare the constant contempt for democracy on GW Bush’s face, on Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s and Rice’s and Perle’s and Wolfowitz’s faces, with the usual tamely polite “objectivity” of Frontline found in this momentarily-hopeful production idea (Frontline programs have ratified “Why The Towers Fell,” let’s not forget). The true Left has virtually nowhere to speak with its country anymore except the Internet. With GOP slashes in “Public” budgets since Reagan, the media have become slaves to government powers who sell access to “hot news” as a product to be sold; and if you aren’t “nice,” you get no more free news-capital, and actually have to work. Who can IMAGINE any other country getting “scrutinized” with such kid-gloves for anything close to similar world and domestic behavior? Who can imagine what future Presidents will be able to do because of these precedents, and yet, still “not come close” to the Bush Crime Family Catastrophes—and so impeachment becomes virtually impossible? Who imagines that the PBS joke of “non-commercial television” is unaffected by the sociopolitical whims of tubby, faceless corporate sponsors and incestuous cocktail party hacks? Why is Jim Lehrer (Barney Rubble) willing to give any official liar an uncontested forum—predictable as dung? Can you wait to see the 180-degree turn by the mainstream media when a Dimocrap has Bush’s and Cheney’s powers and their leeway to spit on The Constitution? Frontline has gone the way of most others—playing it safe and combing its sober-somber “reputation” while the world burns. Get lost.
“Perhaps we should just boycott all MSM networks until they choose to stop being willing accomplises to this criminality.”
I have not watched TV for 10 seconds this year. I rarely listen to the radio, and I very aggressively dig through the online news to get at the whole story.
You guys
Love to score political points, But don’t give shit about a million Iraqi kids who have lost their fathers and millions more who have lost every chance for any kind of education or real life progress. Brown skin fucks, do we actually care at all? Nah! but lets hate Cheney and Bush, cos thats fun!
Clearly the USA IS SORELY IN NEED OF ITS OWN EDUCATION in the form of multiple nuclear attacks that waste your cities, so that millions of American kids can join reality where the victims of America experience it and truly enjoy the kind of SHIT! You have been so happy to dispense elsewhere! With such horrible experience you will be truly able to conclude that Life really sucks doesn’t it! Rather than just imagine life sucks! Like the teeth or survivors need to be falling out from radiation sickness! and then say! Well now we are in seriously DIRE straights!
For now your complaints are seriously padded by the conceits of comfort and indifference. You could lose those and everything else as well, and then you will get TRULY sympathetic for how it feels to be a VICTIM rather than the arseholes who always wasted the weaker and darker skinned bastards!
Cheny, the Democrats, George Bush and Blah Blah Blah! You guys need a few million rads of quick time “open up your eyes and watch your cities fry” to get beyond talking bullshit to the Iraqi level or just moaning like a dying animal, and then a REAL TASTE of the price of war! It’s like the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 was the last time Americans got a taste of reality! Shit your pants! cry to mummy! and pray for deliverance!
Since then too much one way traffic and too much feeling slightly guilty after chain-gunning civilians at a wedding party! But go home to wife and kids and yellow ribbon bullshit! as HEROES! Yeah! That was heroic hey! There were real heroes in the Battle of the Bulge but they didn’t boast like the present generation of american fuckheads, because they appreciated the cost of victory, the danger of a potent enemy and the sheer luck and grace that gets you through hell! They did not have, as you all do the blood of innocents all over their hands! They survived war against five primed divisions of Waffen SS and aquired both respect as warriors, and the privilege of respect that comes with true danger and fighting a superior foe!
Its been a long time since thast hasn’t it!
You guys need to be refreshed with absolute annihilation for a bit and then realise, hey shit! We bleed too! And get real!
In short you can cry and complain when you have reasons! These are fairly inevitable! So flee to the obscure places now!
What you do, should in a just world be DONE TO YOU! The Golden Mean follows, of appreciating what is right and wrong having suffered the wrong rather than merely inflicted it on darker skinned people!
The bleeting of the left about the wrongs of republican policy as not a thousandth of the anger of the gods of relatiation and revenge!
The world awaits all American children to be in the kind of situation that the Iraqi shildren are in now for JUSTICE to be served. Since this clearly will need nuclear destruction of major american civic centres, THAT IS WHAT GOD DEMANDS! Good luck then! The questions is only how and when!
Tantrum!
Seems like the only real progressive (liberal) news show out there now is Bill Moyers. I’m sure if he steps over some invisible line in the sand, then his funding will be cut and all we’ll be left with is FOX clones.
And then, there’s Hillary.
The PNAC leaders approached Bill Clinton in 98, with their broad Pax Americana schematic for changing the Middle East, and he said NO.
That must have loomed large in the list of events during his embattled final years in office. I fact, I bet his refusal to go along with invading Iraq, gave the CONS the green light to launch their Monica findings into the public arena, which lead to his impeachment sham. Had he gone along, who knows…
So Hillary - wasn’t she - Ms. FIRST LADY - availed of this PNAC groups agenda? Didn’t she have some knowledge of what these people were lusting for? Or weren’t she and Bill TALKING then?
So the PNAC boys get their people in power in 2000, and in comes ALL of the signators of that document to join Bush’s cabinet, and then 911 happens, and then the run up to the war, with all of the BS shown to Congress about WMD, all LIES, and she and many other Dems, bought it, repeating the NeoCON lies as justification for their resolution vote in October, 2002 to authorize war with Iraq.
Hello? Are you kidding me Hillary?
These facts, and these alone convinces me that she is complicite, had full knowledge of the Bush Administrations plans, that they were lying, and SHE HAS BLOOD ON HER HANDS.
She cannot get the Dems Nomination, because she is nothing more then bush in a pantsuit.
Did Frontline reveal the war was always about bases and oil — of course not — so much for federal funding if it dared pull back the curtain to reveal: Dick and the gang of neo-cons plotting to control the Middle East as part of the New American Empire. We can’t have that with McCain set to win and continue to “stay the course.”
Might spark — heaven forbid — real discussion and (horrors) dissent.
Too much to expect from the unfree PBS.
Gary
kent shaw March 26th, 2008 1:20 pm: “Almost as crazy as 19 Arabs, mostly Saudis, who couldn’t fly a piper cub, coordinated by an Arab in a cave 10,000 miles away, executing flight maneuvers that a highly trained fighter pilot couldn’t pull off in a fighter jet, let alone a ponderous airliner, slamming airliners into three buildings, one of them the Pentagon, probably the most protected buildings in the world. I mean, come on! Prior to 911, try to sell that hack plot to a movie studio and they’d still be laughing you out of town.”
What happened with me, once I took the time to consider that 9/11 was not as it was sold, and I watched Steven E. Jones’s
9/11 - 2/1/2006 BYU Professor Steven E Jones WTC Lecture, it was FULL STOP! If WTC7 (which I had never heard about before) was controlled demolition, then all the other assumptions are out the window. After looking at the subject more deeply I concluded that THE EVIDENCE FOR ISLAMIC TERRORIST HIJACKERS IS LESS THAN NONEXISTENT!.
But we still have the Urban Moving Systems dancers to explain.
My favorite part of these Frontline broadcasts was the narrator’s voice. Is that the same guy who does the National Football League Film highlight shows??? We Americans love gravelly voices. PBS through Jim Lehrer has been as much of a cheerleader for this war as anyone on Fox News—-from its inception—and much more effectively—-he preaches to the elites, not Joe Sixpack. Frontlines proved their incompetence…and proved to me that this show is as much of a sham as “The Newshour”, when they discussed the Administrations planting of stories in the New York Times, and how the stories were then quoted by the officials who planted them. The camera zoomed in on one front page NYT story—-written by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon. We then got to see the same Michael Gordon repeatedly as one of their expert talking heads. It’s worth mentioning that hard-hitting interviewer Charlie Rose interviewed the CEO of Shell Oil last night. My sixteen year old son’s question: “Could Charlie get his nose any further up that guy’s butt???”
“Someone not already aware of how our media has become a tool of the Bush administration. …“
????? I take it to be the other way around! Or perhaps a more realistic view is that the same puppet masters control both Bush and the media.
There was nothing new in “Bush’s War” because the documentary was edited together using footage from previous Frontline Iraq War documentaries. Anyone who regularly watches Frontline has already seen the interviews featured on “Bush’s War.”
Thank you, Ray. This needed to be said!
Ray,
As much as I appreciate and agree with most of what you said, I still can’t help feel that you’re a little off the mark. The average PBS viewer isn’t as engaged as the average CD reader and thus Frontline’s program probably served as a huge educational tool for many people. I too felt that there was nothing new for me personally, but I’m sure that wasn’t the case for most.
I appreciate that Frontline stuck to the facts and didn’t interject opinion, which is a rarity in today’s media. Because our media today is so filled with opinion, it has been very challenging for the average person to figure out which way is up in these past 8 years. To see the events laid out in a clear and concise timeline, with interviews of key players, was something that I wish we had more of in the MSM.
Sure, Frontline wasn’t as critical as you wanted them to be. Nor did they dig into more of the sensitive issues driving this madness. But I still feel that did a good job of informing the masses about the facts without taking sides, which in my opinion is what journalism is all about.
PBS. Useless as usual. Glad I don’t send them money anymore. They did however, manage to juice 4 hours out of my life for this complete waste of time.
Z-zzzzzzzzzzzz
liveandlearn is RIGHT ON! Thanks for your comment. I watched the whole thing and kept thinking everyone who votes should have to watch this. MOST people would have found it more enlightening than what they usually get on TV. I told my husband about all these comments and he said… He thought what he watched was good but admitedly fell short of doing all the thinking for us. He thought after watching it he had to actually draw his own conclusions. dlz
liveandlearn March 26th, 2008 2:05 pm: “I appreciate that Frontline stuck to the facts and didn’t interject opinion, which is a rarity in today’s media. ”
Facts? I’ve only seen the first segment, but the entire essence of what they said about 9/11 was patently false. What people said, and where they were was not overtly fabricated, but the omissions are egregious. Also the narrator’s sycophantic acceptance that “al Qaeda” and bin Laden were responsible for the attacks was perpetuating a false claim for which evidence has never been presented.
Remember we were supposed to get a “white paper” enumerating the evidence pointing to bin Laden?
DUH ! OIL CORPORATIONS ARE HEAVY DONORS AT PBS
And Frontline did a similar whitewash on the Taliban in Afghanistan and deleted all of the historical and current connections with American Big Oil Central Asian energy policy.
They also forgot to mention that the Bush administration gave the Taliban $43 Million in “aid” in 2001 prior to 9/11 while they were harboring the No. 1 “terrorist” in the world !
So much for cutting edge “documentary” corporate/political propaganda !
What’s more disturbing to me is that people can actually post on CD that they weren’t aware of this stuff because they don’t “follow the news 24/7.” Good gravy, no wonder the U.S. is mired in stoopid. A whole mess of Americans were working 2-4 jobs and raising kids and yet somehow “we” working slobs had the inside skinny that managed to elude the rest of the country. Welcome to the conversation… eight years late.
How could you guys vote for the biggest idiot in history, President Bush?
“But I still feel that did a good job of informing the masses about the facts without taking sides, which in my opinion is what journalism is all about.”
In the last decade I’ve marveled at how this notion of not “taking sides” has become synonymous with being “uncritical.”
Having watched the Frontline piece now, Ray is far too lenient. PBS ought to be ashamed. Not only was the piece timid, it was downright dishonest and displayed a blatant conservative bias. Utterly unprofessional.
Hetware:
So, you’re going to disregard my statements based on a single part of Frontline’s piece?
You’re obviously a 9/11 conspiracy buff and I will admit that there are many unanswered questions about that day. However, as I mentioned, the piece was focused on the facts as they are accepted today. That’s not to say they won’t change in the future as more investigation is done by people of your stripe.
However, for Frontline to spin off into conspiracy theory would have tainted everything they were trying to accomplish. If they were to highlight the conspiracies, then they step into the world of opinion and speculation, thus it is no longer journalism and it may as well be a letter to the editor.
9/11 is just one part of what has transpired during “Bush’s War.” They were trying to document the whole story of events starting with that tragic day and up until the present day.
Given that the left is the ideology of the people and the truth, the usefulness of the Frontline program lies in where in the ideological spectrum public opinion was before the broadcast, the amount of public opinion it managed to sway left, and by how much. If the program were too left leaning it could backfire. If it were too right leaning it could fail to move the most it could. Many progressives view the risk of backfire is diminished today because the right has been exposed to a wider audience as the complete fraud that it is. The public knows today that almost all human-induced problems in this world are created by the right wing agenda. The right stands for zero-sum exploitation/plunder by and for the few. There is absolutely no reason to tolerate any level of the right wing agenda and the people are fast coming to understand this.
Frontline does seem like Republican propaganda disguised as investigative journalism. They frame the debate around strategic and tactical mistakes made by the Junta, but don’t mention this being an illegal war of aggression run by the war criminals in the White House. And one would think Iraq’s main export is strawberries for all the attention paid to oil.
Yep… not one mention of OIL. Not even a shot of U.S. troops guarding the Oil Ministry building while the National Museum was being looted.
I love my PBS station, but I have no illusions that the Petroleum Broadcasting System wants to pin the blame on the ineptitude of Cheney and Rumsfeld, rather than the imperial ambitions of Wall Street and Houston. That’s why I also support Pacifica Radio.
The Frontline special was just repackaged material - a review before the big exam (November elections).
Actually, the show aired too soon, not too late.
I don’t bother with Washington Week anymore - it’s sponsored by Big Oil, Big Agriculture and Big Warplanes.
But we still have Bill Moyers (thank God). And don’t forget that NOW did a show on Republican vote fraud with Greg Palast.
Maybe Frontline will let him do one on the Iraq-Houston connection someday.
I’m a firm believer in that, too. Someone once said that all wars should be fought in an arena consisting of just the leaders of the countries who want the war. War would end in no time.
I agree - PBS is like the car that only starts every third try. Some great stuff and some garbage, Frontline included. I’ve felt this way ever since they supposedly told the truth about the US attack on Yugoslavia and then just repeated the Clinton administration fantasy version of events. A real dissection of that fiasco would maybe have made Iraq out of the question. But lies beget lies.
Bush’s War was a major disappointment, it only came close to showing exactly how boys playing war games are total idiots without a clue of the consequences of their actions.
However, I was glad to see a rerun of the Mission Accomplished seenario. Play acting at it’s finest and
one of the more embarrassing moments in american history. I hope there are pictures in all the history books to remind future generations of the stupidity of war and the people who play war games.
Newt Gingrich effectively neutered PBS in the mid 1990s by threatening to withdraw federal funds unless changes were made.
The changes were made.
PBS has not been the same since then.
Funny, but I seem to remember a FRONTLINE episode from some time around January, 2007–that’s right, one year ago–that dealt with the way we were lied into war and that it was really all about oil. If Mr. McGovern commented on that one, I must have missed it. Granted it was several years too late, but it was timely enough that when a close family member e-mailed the Frontline site around to friends and other family, she and I caught holy hell from another family member who regularly listens to Rush Limbaugh and attends a fundamentalist church. We took the flak like Rather and Frontline have been doing. So I say Frontline, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!! And next time….say it sooner! Remember: a conservative is a person who takes too long to realize the liberals were right all along.
Thanks again, Ray; news that is waaay too late, and sanitized beyond belief. Where were Kathy Kelly, Jeremy Scahill, Patrick Coburn, Seymour Hersh, Howard Zinn, IVAW, etc., and oh yeah, Ray McGovern? The same lack of critical analysis exemplified a report on Colombia a couple of years ago, in an expose-style voice that sounds like the definitive word.
Segment 3:
More shilling of the OCT:
First they stress that there were suicide attacks. Of course, never bothering to present a shred of evidence to support the lie. See: Fake bin Laden Video
Clean demarcation between pre-9/11 and post-9/11 world. See ZELIKOW (part one / snowshoefilms series) and Catastrophic Terrorism: Elements of a National Policy By Ashton B. Carter, John M. Deutch and Philip D. Zelikow Zelikow, et al.’s paper was a road-map to the dark-side.
I also get the feeling the producers of the show are trying to spin the puppet show.
Too empty, too shallow , this PBS production is Discovery Channel approved. Watching the major players, who were the gears of the occupation (including the media embeds) look back wistfully after resignations or retirement reveals a startling truth: A catastrophically lethal disaster is surrounded by people who were just doing their jobs, Incredibly (and these people must live in an alternate universe) they couldn’t imagine anything less then epic carnage before the first missles were launched in 2003.
cindysheehan
I wanted to acknowledge you for the good work that you do and to let you know that within each one of us is a power to know and do the right thing. Not everyone has the courage that you do but it changes people from within knowing there is an ethical person that represents the issues and people that want to see change. Thanks very much.
Ray…
I agree! I’m glad someone had the courage to say it.
Follow the money. Where does PBS get its money from these days? Corporate sponserships, and the US Gov.
Did anyone really expect Frontline to do anything that would upset either money flow? Not a chance. I think Frontline’s last good reporting was on the Iran-Contra treason in the 80’s. I didn’t even bother to watch this.
Thanks for this Ray McGovern. I saw in Berkeley at the KPFA event, Intellectuals Speak Out, and appreciated that you have participated in general in the most difficult areas to work to expose.
I was revolted by this program and can hardly stand to watch such things, knowing the full toll . . . I realized that the Iraqis must have less numbers, proportionally, in wounded than the US, since theirs would likely not survive, while ours do. I work in a VA med center. It would be impossible for the Iraqis to receive the kind of care the US participants did. So they are the biggest losers in all this. Both of us will lose our countries to the powerful few.
Segment 4:
What they don’t show is the footage of the Taliban leader doing what the leader of any sovereign nation would do in an extradition case. He asked for evidence showing bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11. (I believe the clip is in the latest Loose Change release.) None, of course, was forthcoming.
BTW, just the title sounds like Democratic Party propganda. Maybe they are trying to suck up the Dem majority in Congress the way Frontline always tried to please Gingrich and pals.
Its not Bush’s War. That’s the Dem party line these days. Its all Bush’s fault. Its all Cheney’s fault. Their entire next campaign is just going to be an attempt to scare everyone about McCain.
So, was there no mention of how the Democrats supported this war? It couldn’t have happened without them. 41 Senators could have filibustered and block the authorization of the war. At any point since, 41 Senators could have blocked the funding for the war. The Founders deliberately gave them this power for just such an occasion.
Did the show discuss the Dem party strategy at the time of the vote authorizing the war? I’m curious, because its still one of the most evil and disgusting things I’ve ever heard. The vote was in Oct 2002, just a few weeks before the 2002 mid-term elections. The strategy the Dem party leaders were following at the time was this. They were saying that Dems should vote for the war to ‘get it off the table’ for the mid-term elections. The strategy was that if they quickly approved the war, then they thought they could redirect the discussion back to more domestic issues and that they could pick up seats in the Congress that way.
So, it was all about an election strategy for the Dems to gain power. That’s it. Think about that for a second. Think about 4000 dead American service people (probably more than that … that’s what the Pentagon admits too), think about a million or more dead Iraqis. Think of the Americans who’ve come home wounded or maimed or with psychological problems from what they’ve done and seen. Think about 4 million Iraqi refugees who’ve had to flee. Think about a country virtually destroyed and now splitering apart into more violence. Think about the billions of dollars that have been flat out stolen.
Think about all of that, and then remember the Dems were willing to stand up and approve all of that just for an election strategy.
Bush’s war … yeah right. Its as much the Democrats war as it is Bush’s. The Dems have been on board every step of the way. The Dems could have stopped this at any point. Yet, we see the Dem party propaganda that tries to personalize all of this on Bush or Cheney. Not believing a word of it.
I will confess, I did not watch the Frontline show. I will also confess that I am a former PBS employee.
With that said, the point I want to make is that with the evidence of lackluster programming and soft-hitting reporting that the time has come for us to finally ask if PBS has outlived it’s usefulness.
One person calls PBS useless, another says this program was Discovery Channel approved, and still many others have voiced their disapproval over how Frontline handled, or rather dodged, the real story.
PBS was once known for their quality educational programming, their trustworthy news and their hard-hitting documentaries. Now, unfortunately, they have become rehashed, reheated and stale.
Frontline’s mediocre approach to Bush’s War is only one more example of a system that has grown old and tired, and afraid to take on the fight. The time has come to rethink how educational programming can be distributed, and to rethink the future of PBS.
Thanks, Ray. You’re right: 2 nights of light weight stuff, posing as an important documentary. A real disappointment. Nothing any of us that were paying attention didn’t already know. Watch Link & Free Speech TV for the real skinny on what’s happening in the world!
And Unchained - to add to your punishment for George Bush, Dick Cheney, & all the other U.S. war criminals - their sentence should also be for them to be chained to a legless vet at Walter Reed Army Hospital & to have to wait on them for the rest of their earthly days.
liveandlearn March 26th, 2008 3:03 pm: However, for Frontline to spin off into conspiracy theory would have tainted everything they were trying to accomplish. If they were to highlight the conspiracies, then they step into the world of opinion and speculation, thus it is no longer journalism and it may as well be a letter to the editor.
Nonsense! If they were doing their jobs as journalists, they would be called every aspect of the attacks into question. I cannot link to the most relevant material because CD has blocked the sites. This should take you to one source: 9/11 Planes were Electronically Commandeered. There is nothing spectacularly speculative about this. I is simply an examination of the evidence and arriving at sound and reasonable conclusions.
But I’m not even asking for that much out of the sycophant media. I just want them to ask the relevant questions, and show the relevant information. This idea that we are “conspiracy buffs” is insulting and shows a serious lack of understanding on your part.
Ever see this on PBS THE SECRET WORLD OF MOHAMED ATTA? I’ve investigated a lot of this stuff to verify what I can about what Hopsicker reports, and he checks out just about every time. Any uncertainties have been insignificant to the bigger story.
Speaking of Hopsicker and the Frontline program. They talk about extraordinary rendition in segment 5. Have a look at the life and times of N987SA and N900SA, for starters.
I was so totally disgusted with this program that I wanted to barf after viewing it.
I forced my conservative husband to watch it, expecting it to bring some reality into his life.
Sadly I was disappointed.
The entire program was misleading. The title made one think that it was going to place the blame where it belonged, on BUSH!
Instead, it was an apologetic expose claiming that Bush had such bad information and direction that it wasn’t his fault.
The final comment was oh so telling, claiming that since the surge attacks are down. Only attacks on American service personnel are down. February was the worst month in the last six months for Iraqis.
OH wait, I forgot, Iraqis don’t count!!!
Disgusting pro Bush propaganda program.
There was a lot of good stuff in this program, and there is more detail online.
Program’s great weakness was coverage of Sistani, of Sadr, and of Iraqi leaders.
Sadr was portrayed as “thug” and “murderer”, rather than a sincere nationalist opposed to occupation of his home, a man who risked his life by staying in Iraq under Saddam, even after his family was murdered, while most shia leaders fled to Iran for many years. Sadr is also rare among shia leaders for his outreach and support of sunni brothers, in words and in deeds (as at Fallujah). Frontline completely ignored the fact that USA first banished Sadr’s newspaper for telling the truth, then attempted to kidnap and murder him. Only then did Sadr defend himself in battle, which Bush and Frontline regard as Sadr’s attack on USA.
Frontline completely failed to mention the importance of Sistani, how he worked with UN representative Sérgio Vieira de Mello and forced Bush/USA to hold elections; how he intervened in the USA’s attack on Sadr forcing USA to back off; how he engineered the shia alliance which won the elections; how he still holds the ultimate trump card (massive resistance by all shia); how he still refuses to meet with any representative of the USA occupation.
Frontline was also seriously lacking in any description of the various shia factions/organizations, and their relationship to Iran. Bush (and more recently McCain) have conflated these shia groups for their political gain. In fact Sadr is the LEAST influenced/supported by Iran; whereas Dawa and Sciri (the leaders recognized, praised and supported by Bush and McCain) are the MOST influenced/supported by Iran.
The extensive interviews online are a treasurehouse of information, e.g., did you know that John Burns of NYT is an old buddy of Bush’s? Perhaps this accounts for Burns continual search for rationality in Bush’s madness:
“I’ve known him for a very long time, since he and I both were young men … when the first President Bush was the head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in China, and the present President Bush came and spent a summer there. I was introduced to him by his parents, and we spent some time together. …”
Burn’s recitation that Sadr murdered another cleric is really misinformed/disinformed. In the first place, Sadr was not even present when this cleric was killed at a mosque - Sadr had left the building earlier. In the second place, this cleric was a USA stooge, chosen by Chalabi and Bush team and supported by Chalabi-Bush militia of 700 men (flown into Iraq by USA planes), and brought to the mosque by them in an attempt to take it over against the wishes of its existing leadership. No surprise that he was knifed when he refused to leave, but why blame Sadr?
I watched the whole, silly propaganda piece. Nothing was said as to the FACT that Bush (read: Cheney, neocons) WANTED this war, and used lies to justify their actions.
More importantly,a much larger piece of the puzzle is missing from this, and from ALL discussions of the Bush invasion of Iraq–EVERYTHING is going EXACTLY ACCORDING to PLAN!! That’s the missing piece in this saga–this war is, in fact, driving Iraq back to the stone age. This is a good thing if you want to rewrite the boundaries of the nations in this area– Instability must be spread throughout the whole of the middle east-have you read about the millions of Iraqi nationals being forced to flee to other Arab nations? And, it is critical that you blame outside players for this instability–let’s start with Iran, for instance. It’s called EXPANDING your horizons!!
Also, this war is KEEPING IRAQI OIL OFF THE MARKET–and driving international oil prices through the roof–just look a the Wall Street Journal to see the profits Exxon and the other pirates are taking from this oil war. Bush will leave office a much, much, MUCH richer man than he was than when he became pres-He’s done a helluva job for his corporate masters. They’ll set the boy up, but good.
Hetware:
Are you even listening to yourself? Expecting PBS to air material that a progressive site like CD won’t even allow you to post makes you sound like you’re sniffing glue or something.
I’m plenty skeptical about 9/11, as I’ve mentioned twice now, but it still won’t somehow sink in for you. However, you obviously expected this Frontline piece to be all about 9/11 instead of what it was about which was the whole timeline of events.
Anyone who expects PBS to air controversial material fails to understand what drives their programming.
Too many here expect too much from a channel that had it’s budget slashed, is donor dependant, has had their management politicized, and are not even on cable TV. Time to smell the reality roses people!
It’s not just PBS but NPR that has gone news lite. The other day on Talk of the Nation there was a show commemorating the death of 4000 soldiers. A father who had lost a son called and started to rail against the Bush regime. Neil Conan kept trying to interrupt him and change the subject.
Fortunately we have sites like this as well as Pacifica, with Free Speech Radio and TV, Democracy Now, Counterspin, etc.
This was another turn of the screw, which shapes and restates the Iraq war by small steps. Frontline is the flagship producer on PBS, defining reality the way the establishment wants it to be framed. The program is basically state propaganda.
I found the program very problematic for many reasons. All of the framing of the
war as “War on Terror” is left standing–it’s even reinforced! Not a
mention of the real causes of war: the media complex, the oil industry, the
military industrial complex, the religious right, the financial industries.
Oh heck no — theh whole war was caused by Chalabi, Cheney, Wolfowitz and
Feith. Gimme a break.
PBS, NPR and the CPB need to be terminated, and the money and resources used
to fund public access channels that can be locally controlled.
And all of the people on this video are all right wing militarists. Where is Noam
Chomsky? Norman Solomon? Dennis Kucinich? Daniel Ellsberg? Our peace groups have watched
100 documentaries more useful than this.
Basically you end up thinking, only these rightwingers and statists are real, experienced, substantial… and qualified to run the military establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth. ALL these bozos are very problematic and
Washington needs a good housecleaning to put all of them out to pasture.
How sickening to hear them saying "we". There are the oligarchs
who Frontline serves, and the other 99.9% of America. Us versus them.
Why is Frontline rehabilitating George Tenet, Colin Powell… what is this about??
Leaving that aside, the narrative was chock full of the wrong framing, reinforcing a web of
lies that tend to support the idea of a permanent military. These ideologies are not accepted by most spiritual leaders, philosophers or parents. History provides many examples of ideologies that have been promoted by politicians and rulers, whether in pursuit of power or control, or simple national security:
- that the nation is your supreme unit of affiliation (above your family, friends and community, and above humanity) (note: 96% of humanity lives outside the U.S.)
- that the inhabitants of other nations are different from our nation, and their well-being matters less than American well-being.
- that being a member of the Army or Marines is inherently noble and honorable.
- that the nation is under attack by terrorism (or communism, or whatever.)
- that surrendering unconditional obedience to a commander, or a president, is a virtue,
- that all contests are ultimately resolved by physical power, and all diplomacy, business contracts, and freedoms exist only at the pleasure of the world’s militaries (”freedom isn’t free”)
- that nonviolent alternatives to war are ineffective
- that it is treasonous and disloyal to your society, to oppose wars or fail to “support the troops” after the government has declared a war.
- that the government is equal to your society.
- that the nation is something worth dying for -essentially an effort to substitute the state for family or tribal bonds, or place it within a frame of religious beliefs.
Todd
late to the thread as usual.
Thanks for the article and posts. I did not see the show. I do not own a tv.
There were a lot of causes for the invasion of Iraq. There were a lot of (insert your favorite scatological adjective) people who thought that smashing Iraq would get them what they wanted. They all got together and when there were enough of them they had their war.
(In no particular order) oil, bases, Israel, glory, profit, heaven. I’ve probably only left out a few dozen.
The ‘Frontline’ show sounds disappointing. A democracy cannot exist without a well-informed citizenry.
Weak as this show was, there is still ample evidence that Dick Cheney is impeachable.
He certainly looks like the Iago in this dismal scenario.
Segment 6 Bush says that Saddam gassed his own people. That was something I had away believed until I saw the video clip of retired Army War College professor and ex-CIA analyst Stephen Pelletiere saying that Saddam did not have the type of chemical weapons used, and that the people who had been gassed were caught in the crossfire of a battle between Iranian and Iraqi troops. They were, in fact, killed by Iranian chemical weapons.
Thanks For The Memories, Saddam.
U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie gave Saddam what amounted to a green-light to invade Kuwait. Once that was done the US turned on him.
Mohamed Atta was a happy go lucky drug-runner working for the BFEE/CIA. See, for example the connections to Huffman Aviation. All of this is, BTW, sourced. The reason this is SO important is that it completely obliterates any notion that it even matters if Saddam had ties to “al Qaeda”.
Segment 7:
No mention of Feith’s ties to radical Zionism and to AIPAC espionage cases. Also no mention of Perle, Feith and Wurmser’s roles in crafting A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm [AKA Israel] I again mention the lack of attention paid to Stephen E. Herbits who has unseemly ties to both the war on Iraq and to Israel.
Segment 8:
So now we have prisoners who were handed over to US forces by men who were payed a bounty for rounding up “al Qaeda” members. “al Qaeda” had nothing to do with 9/11, and this disgraceful episode has brought shame upon the United States of America and is in absolute contradiction to the values of my ancestors who created this nation.
liveandlearn March 26th, 2008 5:25 pm:Hetware:
Are you even listening to yourself? Expecting PBS to air material that a progressive site like CD won’t even allow you to post makes you sound like you’re sniffing glue or something.
“Progressive”? I’m not sure how that is going to factor in. There are certainly traditional conservative sites where my views are permitted. Strangely, neo-conservatism doesn’t seem to have much of a popular base nor online presence. I don’t know that “expecting” is the best word to describe what I am intending regarding PBS and the rest of the media’s complete lack of spine. I really don’t expect the press to adhere to their part in the social contract, but I do demand it.
I’m plenty skeptical about 9/11, as I’ve mentioned twice now, but it still won’t somehow sink in for you. However, you obviously expected this Frontline piece to be all about 9/11 instead of what it was about which was the whole timeline of events.
The first several segments of the program do hinge on 9/11 in one way or another. The fact that the US was already preparing the invasion well before 9/11 is material to both 9/11 and to the invasion of Afghanistan. I am not exclusively focusing on 9/11, but it’s pretty hard (for me) to ignore in the context of a “War on Terror” spawned by the attacks.
Anyone who expects PBS to air controversial material fails to understand what drives their programming.
Too many here expect too much from a channel that had it’s budget slashed, is donor dependant, has had their management politicized, and are not even on cable TV. Time to smell the reality roses people!
I quit watching TV in my own home 30 years ago.
In typical bourgeois fashion, the show focused on the individuals rather than the underlying motives - ie. US imperialism. It left the viewer with the idea that the war was somehow mismanaged, as opposed to what should be said about this war - which is that it is illegal from the get-go and perpetuated to extend US hegemony on the world. Although it’s somewhat interesting to hear the players, in their own words, describe their interactions as events unfolded, it doesn’t make the viewer any wiser about how we’re going to change this fuking world and stop these insane wars in the future.
I have read enough CD blogs … including this one … and I really believe that if all of you people (excluding Cindy Sheehan) were together in a room and told to put together a PBS documentary or SOMETHING - 2/3rds of you would be whining about what you THINK should be done, and the other third would have moved on to something else.
Talk is not action.
Get off the computer and MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Wait. That means me too.
Peace - out!
Wasn’t that the 2nd time Frontline showed Bush’s War? I thought it was rather boring. The Bush administration and their accomplices looked like a bunch of evil, thin-lipped, mean-faced, self-important, old little boys who were thrilled with their power and excited that they were going to have Iraq invaded — and people killed.
Many informed, intelligent posts. KUDOS to: KENT SHAW, LWHUNT330, & TODD BOYLE, among many.
Video of the surge from Baghdad and USA tax dollars at work in the first of a series:
Baghdad: City of walls
Iraqi journalsit, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s documents the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war by traveling through the heart of Baghdad;
Which is an open air prison that divides Sunni and Shia populations behind 12ft high walls and “the surge has left the city more divided and desperate than ever”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/mar/17/baghdad.city.of.walls
e
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
and as usual the emailers here do not see the israel connection. the neocons who are israelfirsters wanted iraq destroyed for their security and the oilmen wanted iraq destroyed for oil, and both groups want permanent occupation. and the press that is run by israelfirsters deosn’t want to give out this information. and voila, iraq, mission accomplished after all.
Our media here in the U.S as always been a tool of the government, this is nothing new. For those of you who are unaware of this, google operation “MOCKINGBIRD”.
Thank you Mr.McGovern for your service to this country and for continuing to bring truth to the light.
“In times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.- George Orwell
It would be lovely if CD would apply a true dash — NOT a hyphen — where appropriate. Easier reading, really!
To those who found the Frontline piece illuminating I am delighted for your newfound knowledge. However, would you not have preferred to have the entire story, the bigger picture, to have included those elements so eloquently discussed by Ray McGovern? It could have been better … much much better.
Thank you Ray. When Exxon and Walmart started funding PBS, they should have changed the name to Corporate Broadcasting System. We need to be out confronting our Congress people, Administration members, and their aids. Donald Rumsfeld disappeared shortly after being confronted in public by Ray. When Ray brought the actions of AIPAC out in a public forum,the hypocrisy of Dems chair Howard Dean was exposed. We need to all follow Ray’s example.
Ray McGovern and Cindy Sheehand in this miss the whole point. Scapegoatism. BUSHES WAR!?!? Where’s congress in this? Where’s impeachment? Where is, biggest of all, WAR PROFITEERING?!?!?
Shame on all of the above.
The oil is about military preparations. The main targets are US people, who hold knowledge of the machines of war.
Wake up Americans, and a lot of duped Canadians. The USA started down this path way back in November 2000 when you all collectively allowed Baker and Cheney (W is just not that bright)to steal the election with the complicity of the Supreme Court. Why weren’t you people out in the streets demanding a proper recount? i geuss the old addage applies-If you haven’t suffered enough it’s your god given right to suffer more.
Yes, I watched the whole 5.5 hour enchilada and came away with the same heartburn that Ray and others experienced. Where was that ‘purple little pill’ when I really needed it; or maybe some orange sunshine!
In total, it did almost seem to be an apologist piece for ‘what me worry Georgie’ who was portrayed as isolated victim of the twin D’s (Dick and Donald).
Not much said about the historic dream of the Neo-Cons to control (and I mean absolute control) Iraq for it’s oil, water, and as a giant experiment of having a country to practice their antigovernment privatization (piratezation) on. This was to be the tablia Rosa state (clean slate) where every connected crony would get his own little privatized piece of Iraq to
profit as he willed. Nothing public to share with the greater society, no unions, no messy regulations or controls, no socialized medicine, no social security or anything that limited their pornographic greed itch. Just dominant army and police force (privatized of course - think blackwater) to keep the ‘jealous’ masses in line.
Certainly ‘mission accomplished’ was realized by the success from day one of building the enduring bases and giant permanent embassy. The 15 square mile Balad Air force base is already the second largest in the world (only behind Heathrow in England) with over five hundred fights a day. The place is still swarming with almost as many private contractors and militia (140,000) as there are military troops.
In short Iraq was like a huge fat (oil rich) aging cow on the Serengitti with the U.S. (neo-cons) acting as the drooling, desirerous, super predator waiting to ponce. Who says they don’t believe in scientific Darwinism when they are so keen to exercise their blue-blooded survival of the fittest
money making mentality?
I felt this Frontline series was too similar to Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight” documentary, which was out last summer.
Let me guess..
Sponsored by ArcherDaniels Midland; Genetic seed producers for a new America
I have no sympathy for those who rationalize and knuckle under to careerism. I had the choice and lost one career and a good government job because I stood up to them. I paid a heavy price made heavier by those who took the easy road. Bush and Cheney would not be destroying this Country if more people has stood up, but they did not and are not. We got what we deserved. The burden of this war and it’s crushing moral failures rest squarely on the shoulders of those who remained seated when it was time to stand up. Live with your war, you earned it.
I agree. It left out a lot of important information like the meeting with the Saudi Royal family and Bin ladens before 9-11. The neocon’s plan to seize control of Iraq’s oil fields and the privatization of everything in general and the corruption of Haliburton and Cheney’s ties to it. No mention of Scott Ritter trying to tell us there were no WMDS in the first place. Instead it portrayed these war criminals as lacking the right judgement and making the wrong decisions rather than the illegality of the war.
Cindy,
Good to see you in here:)
And thanks, Ray, for putting it all together.
Folks, the con is on in sillyConValley(); Bruce Schneier of Wired has put together a whole bunch of great “security” analyses that pretty expose another huge scam: the whole electronic surveillance thingy. Get this: it does not work. In other words, it really has nothing to do with anything because mathematically it does not determine anything about anybody. It tells us more about Homeland Security than it tells Homeland Security about us.
Check out “Why Spy?” at www.sillyConValley.net
Rob Argento
Tantrum March 26th, 2008 1:30 pm
You guys
Love to score political points, But don’t give shit about a million Iraqi kids who have lost their fathers and millions more who have lost every chance for any kind of education or real life progress. Brown skin fucks, do we actually care at all? Nah! but lets hate Cheney and Bush, cos thats fun!
C’mon. Give us more credit than THAT! We don’t hate cheney and bush because it’s “fun”. Jeez! We hate them because they ARE responsible for the millions who are suffering in Iraq, (and many other places.) We hate them because they are responsible for all the deaths of U.S. troops, and the horrible maiming of U.S. troops! We hate them because they, and their PNAC co-conspirators are destroying the last vestiges of our democracy, and the last vestiges of our image in this world. We hate them because virtually every time they open their mouthes to this country, they tell us another stinking lie! We don’t hate them ’cause it’s “FUN”..or because we like to “score points”! The only ones who might see it that way, are those who are stupid enough to keep score!…if you catch my meaning, if you get my drift. There’s not one friggin’ thing about this that is “FUN”. We hate them because THEY hate us…THEY hate all the insignificant little people, (from their perspective), who get in the way of their lofty, psychotic, highly profitable agenda!
See “WAR MADE EASY” featuring Norman Solomon for a very good analysis and critique of the main-stream media’s role in the propaganda for this war.
The only ppl on this forum who make sense are Tantrum and JustPlainJack.
The rest of you are engaged in armchair oneupmanship by trying to convince each other of your astutenness of the TRUTH.
Sorry to burst the hero bubbles here, but before Ray McGovern joined the honesty crowd, he was an integral part of the dishonest for-living-gang who spent years toiling SPOOK vinyard preparing all that propaganda and hype baloney; Cindy Sheehan, until her son died in Iraq, didn’t know squat about this whole enchilada.
Ralph Nader (remember him?) back in the very early 1970s, was presciently trying to alert the Adumbrated Americans-Addicted-to- Capitalism about multinational corporations pursuit for ultimate power and the perpetuation of eternal-wars-for-profit which would eventually bankrupt and effectively destroy the US economy! Unfortunately for Ralph, he didn’t candycoat his messages with parables like the backstabbing progressive pop idols of the Left Movement.
Juliann March 26th, 2008 7:45 pm
I have read enough CD blogs … including this one … and I really believe that if all of you people (excluding Cindy Sheehan) were together in a room and told to put together a PBS documentary or SOMETHING - 2/3rds of you would be whining about what you THINK should be done, and the other third would have moved on to something else.
Talk is not action.
Get off the computer and MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Wait. That means me too.
Peace - out!
Knowledge is power.
I am not telling you what I think Frontline should have done. I am doing what Frontline didn’t do. I am saying what needs saying - to the extent that such is permissible on CD.
Before you tell me to “Get off the computer and MAKE A DIFFERENCE”, why don’t you tell me - and the rest of us - whether the factual assertions I have made are accurate. And if they are not accurate, how they are in error.
I’ve told you that the war is being waged based on fallacies built upon the fraudulent pretext that 9/11 was the work of 19 Islamic zealots controlled by a man hiding in a cave in the Golden Crescent.
I am telling you that 9/11 Truth is the way to end this madness!. The same globalist forces behind the censorship of the MSM are the forces behind 9/11, and a whole, whole, whole lot more. If you expose 9/11 as a fraud, two things will happen. The foundations of the War of Terror will crumble. People will be awake to the idea that they are susceptible to what, in Mein Kampf, Hitler called “The Big Lie”.
Indeed, if you look closely, the neo-conservatives have firm roots in fascist ideology and methodology.
endCapitalism March 26th, 2008 7:14 pm
In typical bourgeois fashion, the show focused on the individuals rather than the underlying motives - ie. US imperialism.
Irving Kristol key founder of the neoconservative movement admits Marxist roots.
Next up on PBS it will be Mr. Motivation, Wayne Dyer, straight from downtown Baghdad, exhorting the lazy, quarrelsome Iraqis to pull themselves up by their own sandal straps. How Frontline could air a show about the war in Iraq that dwells incessantly on bureaucratic pissing contests without mentioning the word oil a single time is beyond me.
Add me to the list of disappointed viewers of this Frontline piece. No mention of PNAC or of Israel or of any other motivations other than that of pathological pow