If at first you don’t succeed, and you happen to be a member of the right-wing media, lie, lie again ….

This week we have seen a continuation of right-wing rubbish on Guantanamo, Amnesty, media coverage of the torture scandals, and UN-Ambassador designate, Yosemite John Bolton.

  

MYTH: Guantanamo Bay abuses have been overblown

But it's amazing to me that [Senator Biden] and others actually believe that closing Gitmo would accomplish anything. The entire Gitmo situation has been driven by the anti-Bush press and the far left human rights organizations. As "Talking Points" mentioned a week ago, there have been abuses by U.S. interrogators down there, but not many. And now we have some stats to back that up.The Pentagon report found that there have been more than 28,000 Gitmo interrogations over the past three years, and only five cases of Koran abuse, two of which were accidental.  (Bill O’Reilly, “The Truth About Guantanamo Bay... ,” Fox News, 6/7/05)

President Bush has to realize his enemies are going to use the detainee issue to damage his administration. Every week, there will be another so-called scandal until Americans turn completely against Mr. Bush.  (Bill O’Reilly, “Getting Americans Killed,” Fox News, 6/1/05)

Reality check: Under normal wartime practices, these enemy combatants would already have been lined up against the nearest wall and shot. "International law" protects prisoners of war who belong to a legitimate national army, not terrorists.  But leftist organizations such as Amnesty, the International Red Cross and the liberal media are trying to redefine the centuries-old concept of warfare – much as they've done with other institutions, like marriage. Now any punk sporting an "Allah is my homeboy" T-shirt and a backpack bomb apparently qualifies as a legitimate POW.  (Rachel Marsden, “Don't Call Guantanamo a Gulag,” NewsMax.com, June 5, 2005)

Gulag prisoners were systemically starved, beaten, and forced to labor in sub-zero weather. The lucky ones were shot immediately. In contrast, at Guantanamo Bay, 1,300 Korans in 13 different languages were handed out to prisoners. Prisoners are served "proper Muslim-approved food." The International Red Cross has been monitoring the camp from Day One. Gen. Richard Myers noted that the organization has consistently given the U.S. high marks for the way it takes care of terrorists. What is Amnesty's biggest beef about Gitmo? That some guards "mishandled" a book.  (Christopher Orlet, “Gulag Guantanamo,” The American Spectator, June 2, 2005)

Reality

The Pentagon says there really isn’t much wrong with the way things have been handled in Guantanamo.  The human rights community says there is a dangerous pattern of abuse.  

Bottom line?  We can’t truly know what is going on.

O’Reilly doesn’t know.  Amnesty doesn’t know. 

O’Reilly cites Pentagon reports as evidence that media stories on the abuse have been overblown.  Amnesty and other human rights groups cite reports by former prisoners who say they’ve been tortured.

Who is lying?  Who is telling the truth?  It is hard to say for sure because the Pentagon has been so secretive about what has gone on (and continues to occur) in Guantanamo.

Without public sunshine and disclosure, however, we cannot take what the military tells us in its own reporting seriously.  That’s why it is patently absurd when members of the right-wing media take reports from the military itself and use them as evidence that there is no pattern of wrongdoing. 

Talk about your basic fox and henhouse scenario.

We’ve discussed this right wing stunt in our previous torture debunkers, particular in regards to Wall Street Journal editorials, which have relied on the Pentagon’s word and the Pentagon’s word alone to yell and scream that Abu Ghraib was overblown.

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Worth noting: although we cannot know what is going on within Guantanamo’s walls, we do know about the violations of due process that military and U.S. government have engaged in when sending people down there.  Holding military tribunals instead of court trials and  holding prisoners indefinitely may not be evil akin to the Gulag but it is not roses and gumdrops.    

Take for instance, USA Today’s account of military tribunals:

Scott Silliman, a Duke University law professor, says the tribunal's debut has "huge significance" in U.S. legal history, and because the captives at Guantanamo have been held incommunicado for more than two years. "It's the first measure of due process for these people," says Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer.

Not since World War II has the U.S. government used military tribunals to try war crimes suspects. The Pentagon's new version of military tribunals — or commissions, as it calls them — has been criticized by U.S. allies and international human rights advocates as unfair because of the military's exclusive control of the process and the lack of appellate review by civilian courts.  (Toni Locy, “Guantanamo hearings start today,”  USA Today,  8/24/04)

As an aside: fake journalist Bill O’Reilly relies on the word of the Defense Department  to claim that torture is not widespread, yet he is against compelling the Pentagon to disclose further information about Abu Ghraib: strongly opposing efforts by the ACLU to compel the Pentagon to release more photographs from Abu Gharaib.  What kind of journalist uses only one source for evidence, refuses to compel that source to tell the truth, and then blasts everyone else who dares consider an alternative viewpoint? 

 

MYTH: Amnesty International has an anti-American agenda

 

Some artist uses a crucifix as a swizzle stick in a vat full of urine, and Christians just roll their eyes. But suggest flushing the Quran – or even dog-earing a copy of Fodor's Guide to the Islamic World – and the folks who cheered in the Arab Street on 9/11 take it as a green light to riot and blow up more innocent women and children.  This is the crucial difference that Amnesty International doesn't grasp as it threatens to destroy its credibility by making itself a poster organization for anti-American terror apologists.   (Rachel Marsden, “Don't Call Guantanamo a Gulag,” Newsmax.com, 6/5/05)

Unfortunately, like almost all international and most domestic groups, the Left took over Amnesty International, and it devolved into another predictably anti-American, morally destructive organization. (Dennis Prager, “Amnesty International's Tortured Comparison,” Front Page Magazine, 6/7/05)

 

For years, conservatives have loved to call anyone who disagrees with them names like commies, anti-Americans, pinkos, bleeding hearts, etc.  Why?  So they can discount the content of that they are saying.

As we have mentioned, Amnesty was off-base in comparing Guantanamo to the Gulag.  However, this does not mean that the organization is anti-American. Amnesty is critical of almost every country in the world.  While, some may resent the fact that Amnesty chooses to be critical of both democratic and repressive regimes (suggesting a moral equivalency), it is hard to imagine that a group that was really out of get the U.S. would be so critical of its enemies. Amnesty International’s 2005 Report cites human rights violations in 149 countries. Amnesty has cited abuses in Iran, one of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” countries.  The introduction to its report on Iran:

Scores of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, continued to serve prison sentences imposed following unfair trials in previous years. Scores more were arrested in 2004, many in connection with press articles or publications both in print and on the Internet which were alleged to “endanger national security” or defame senior officials or religious precepts. Many of the families of those arrested also faced intimidation.

Independent human rights defenders were harassed. At least two individuals died in custody and 159 people were executed, including one minor. At least two of the 36 people who were flogged reportedly died following the implementation of the punishment; no investigations were carried out into these deaths. The true number of those executed or subjected to corporal punish.  (Amnesty International 2005 Report, Iran)

Amnesty has cited abuses in North Korea, another member of the “Axis of Evil.”  From the introduction to Amnesty’s report on North Korea:

The government continued to fail in its duty to uphold and protect the right to food, exacerbating the effects of the long-standing food crisis. Chronic malnutrition among children and urban populations, especially in the northern provinces, was widespread. Fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, association and movement, continued to be denied. Access by independent monitors continued to be severely restricted. There were reports of widespread political imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment, and of executions. (Amnesty International 2005 Report, Iran)

Amnesty has even issued a report against human rights abuses in France:

Complaints about police violence and abuse rose sharply. Reports of ill-treatment by state agents, mainly police officers, showed that people of foreign origin were the predominant targets of abusive identity checks. Acts of racist violence, intimidation and vandalism were directed at members of Jewish and Muslim communities, and North African immigrants were the main focus of racist attacks in Corsica. Thousands of people took to the streets in November to protest against the high incidence of violence against women in general and, in particular, at the stoning to death of a young woman, Ghofrane Haddaoui, in Marseilles a month earlier. Conditions in prisons, as well as in holding centres for foreign nationals, deteriorated to below international standards. There were frequent reports that people had been physically ill-treated in holding areas and reception centres or during forcible deportation, and that unaccompanied children were detained in holding areas before being deported. (Amnesty International 2005 Report, France)

In short, what Republicans and conservatives have been doing with Amnesty is similar to media-bashing: they ignore their subjects’ entire body of work and focus only on actions which run counter to a right wing political agenda.  They are also diverting attention away from the real problems, by hyping anti-American phantoms. Does Amnesty’s reporting on U.S. human rights abuses make the U.S. look bad?  Yes.  But wouldn't a free country encourage that type of independent concern for individual rights? Amnesty's reporting about France, Iran, and North Korea make these countries look bad too.  Perhaps Amnesty cares about human rights everywhere.  

  

MYTH: Critical news coverage and liberal criticism of the U.S.’s treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is hurting the war on terror

 

Newsweek's false account of a Koran being dumped in a toilet caused much damage to U.S. foreign policy.  On May 20, the New York Times tried to do more damage. It devoted over 6000 words to the deaths of Afghans who had been in the custody of U.S. forces at Bagram Air Base on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. Seven people have been charged for alleged abuse of those described in the Times account. But that didn't stop reporter Tim Golden from including a lot of gratuitous details about the alleged abuse.  The article was timed just before Afghan President Hamid Karzai came to the U.S.  (Cliff Kincaid, “The New York Times Copies Al-Jazeera,” Accuracy in Reporting, 6/6/05)

 

Rabid Anti-Bush Zealots are Hurting the Country [headline]  (Bill O’Reilly,    “Rabid Anti-Bush Zealots are Hurting the Country ,” Human Events Online,      6/6/05)

 

I have heard from many soldiers who have seen the way the American media have ignored their medal-winning heroes while they made household names of the sliver of sickos at Abu Ghraib; who have seen the media spend weeks laboring over the minutest "mistreatment" of the Koran; who have seen their rebuilding deeds and anti-insurgent victories ignored while media outlets tout the efficiency and well-organized nature of insurgent violence.   (L. Brent Bozell, III , “Left Loves to Believe the Worst and Slam U.S.,” Human Events Online, June 3, 2005)

 

More attacking the messenger.  Here’s a radical idea for the Bush administration and its apologists: IF YOU DON’T WANT PEOPLE REPORTING ON THE BAD STUFF YOU DO – DON’T DO IT!

The bottom line, we are fighting a war on terror because we do not want foreign enemies to destroy our way of life.  There is something perverse and sick about a strategy for winning such war that entails voluntarily destroying our way of life first.  Is not freedom about dissent, a free and open press, and accountability? 

And, while we’re on the topic of the press and foreign policy, we’d be remiss if we failed to mention two major debunkers we’ve put together recently:

(1) The Newsweek story that so many conservatives blame for the violence breaking out overseas, did not necessary lead to said violence. 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said (at a White House press conference no less) that the rioting in his country -- attributed by many in both the right wing and mainstream media to having been caused by the Newsweek story – was "in reality not related to the Newsweek story" and was instead "more against the elections in Afghanistan.” Said Karzai: “they were more against the progress in Afghanistan, they were more against the strategic partnership with the United States."

Karzai is not alone. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers said in a news conference that the violence was "not at all tied to the article in the magazine." Here’s an exchange between General Myers and a reporter:

Q: Do either one of you have anything about the demonstrations in Afghanistan, which were apparently sparked by reports that there was a lack of respect by some interrogators at Guantanamo for the Koran. Do either one of you have anything to say about that?

GEN. MYERS: It's the -- it's a judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General Eikenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran -- and I'll get to that in just a minute -- but more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President Karzai and his Cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan. So that's -- that was his judgment today in an after- action of that violence. He didn't -- he thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine. (United States Department of Defense, Official Transcript, DoD News Briefing, 5/12/05)

 

(2) The notion that the media have an anti-military bias – especially given its coverage of the Iraq war – is nonsense. 

There is a major difference between publishing right-wing propaganda and publishing stories about the positive or negative aspect of a conflict.  Those dumbasses who whine about the "liberal bias" in the media never seem to get this.  They classify every story that does not promote their conservative social agenda as "liberally biased."

We are seeing it right now in their squawking about the Iraq War.  The right-wing complains that stories about Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo focus too much of the negative aspects of the war on terror. But, the left also has complaints about the media's coverage and glorification of aspects of the war.  Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is one of the most prolific examples of the case many liberals present against the media.  Some other trends in media coverage that have been criticized by the left, include the underreporting of a so-nicknamed "smoking gun memo" printing in the Times of London on May 1, that allegedly "offered clear new evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war."  (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, "Smoking Gun Memo? Iraq Bombshell Goes Mostly Unreported in US Media," FAIR.org, 5/10/05).

So the right wing thinks that the American media is being to harsh in their coverage of the war on terror, the Bush administration, and the American military.  Meanwhile, the left wing believes the exact opposite.  Who is right?  At the end of the day, the answer is subjective.  Chances are your answer will be somewhat shaped by how you feel about the War in the first place. 

The bottom line: the mainstream media have not been the right-wing propaganda machine that Karl Rove Rush Limbaugh would like it to be.  However, had they really behaved as the left wing propaganda machine Rush purports them to be, wouldn't they have granted "smoking gun memo" a degree of attention it received in the British press?   Wouldn't NBC's coverage look more like that of Al Jazeera?  (Note: For a look at the differences between Arab television coverage of the Iraq War and American media, The Control Room, a documentary, is worth a DVD rental).   

 

MYTH: (File under “beating a dead horse”): John Bolton deserves confirmation; opposition is based on politics not substance

 

John Bolton deserves to serve at the U.N.  (National Review, “Editorial: “ John Bolton deserves to serve at the U.N.,” June 1, 2005)

By now it should be clear to anyone who has followed this nomination that the fight here isn't over Mr. Bolton's record, his temperament or his reading of the intelligence. Rather, it is a policy dispute in which a majority of Democrats, as well as a few Republicans, have chosen to hijack the nomination process to score some points against President Bush's foreign policy.  (Wall Street Journal, “Review & Outlook: Bolton and Syria,” June 6, 2005)

 

What oh what will the conservative rags write about once their poster boy’s nomination battle fades from the news.  Once again, we see these righty rabblerousers trying to beat the drum for this ill-fated, ill-conceived, ill-timed, ill-tempered nominee.

This just in – actually scratch that, this in for awhile: there is a LOT of evidence suggesting that John Bolton is not qualified and does not deserve confirmation.

Here are a few of the items we’ve mentioned before:

• John Bolton “may have mishandled sensitive National Security Agency material.”

• Bolton has been accused of hiding information from Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

Republican Senator George Voinovich and a bipartisan group of 60 former ambassadors oppose Bolton’s nomination.

• Bolton has argued that the U.N. is only worthwhile to the U.S. when it serves our interests.  

• Bolton has suggested that the U.S. should be the only permanent member of the Security Council.    

Bolton has also been accused of verbally harassing employees and threatening to fire those who disagree with him. 

• Bolton criticized and harassed our allies.  

• Bolton was involved in the Niger/Uranium claim that became part of the President’s State of the Union speech in 2003.  

For more on Bolton check out the Washington Note.