Listening Post – The shootout, the US agent and the media
Category Archives: New York Times
Tom Friedman getting high in Egypt
Muammar Gaddafi has several times claimed that he’s up against a rebellion in which his opponents are high on hallucinogenic drugs. I guess he never saw this or this. Tom Friedman, on the other hand, presents what can only be described as a hallucinogenic view of the revolution in Egypt — a psychedelic vision of young Egyptians inspired by Obama, Israeli democracy, Google Earth, the Beijing Olympics, and Palestinian so-called Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The New York Times columnist is clearly high on something. Fortunately, Sarah Carr was able to catch up with him before the drug wore off and persuaded Friedman to reveal more.
Future historians will long puzzle over how I was given an international platform to freely pontificate on the Arab people and be remunerated handsomely for it. It is true that I am not the only person in the world who formulates dubious theories based on scant or no evidence which I then harangue people with. Other people do it. They are called taxi drivers. But they are not as rich as me and haven’t been awarded three Pulitizer Prizes.
Since I’ve been here in Egypt I’ve been putting together a list of “the-absolutely-irrelevant forces” that have captured the captive Arab mind and ignited the simmering coals of the instant garden BBQ that is the Middle East. You might ask why, since I am in Egypt, I don’t ask an Egyptian – possibly two Egyptians – about what inspired them to completely ignore my theories on the Arab peoples and take to the streets. The answer is this: I am Thomas Friedman and I write a column in the New York Times.
I started my last extremely important column with an introduction in which I listed tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media as the “big causes”. Rather than just stop there, I did a Google “surprise me” search and chose five of the random results for my special “mix of forces” which inspired the Arab mass revolts. These included Barack Obama, Google Earth and the Beijing Olympics.
But there are other critical factors integral to an understanding of my bollocks theory on the Middle East. Here they are:
MY MOUSTACHE – Americans have never really appreciated what a radical thing I did in growing a moustache, long the symbol of Arab male virility. I’m convinced that when Arab men catch a glimpse of my moustache as they bring me my breakfast in my hotel they are inspired and say to themselves: “Hmmm. Let’s see. He’s middle-aged. I’m middle-aged. He’s slightly tanned. I’m roughly the same colour. His name is Thomas. My name is Hussein. He is a prick. I sometimes act like a prick. He is not president of the United States. I am not president of the United States. Lincoln is the capital of Nebraska. Water boils at 100 degrees centigrade. He has a moustache. I have a moustache. Both our moustaches have no voice in my future”. I’d put that in my special mix of hallucinogenic drugs and ingest it. [Continue reading…]
Stuxnet attack on Bushehr: Russia warns of ‘Iranian Chernobyl’
Following Saturday’s New York Times report that the Stuxnet malware targeting Iran’s nuclear program was a joint US-Israeli operation, the Daily Telegraph reports that Russian nuclear scientists are concerned that the Bushehr nuclear plant could suffer catastrophic damage.
Fuel rods were inserted in the new reactor at the end of November and the plant is due to start producing electricity in the coming weeks. Ralph Langner, whose German team first identified Iran’s nuclear program as Stuxnet’s target, says the plant’s steam turbine is vulnerable to attack and in November wrote: “If you blow a 1000 Megawatt turbine, you will very likely be able to see the impact by satellite imagery.”
Con Coughlin writes:
Russian scientists working at the plant have become so concerned by Iran’s apparent disregard for nuclear safety issues that they have lobbied the Kremlin directly to postpone activation until at least the end of the year, so that a proper assessment can be made of the damage caused to its computer operations by Stuxnet.
The Iranian government is bitterly opposed to any further delay, which it would regard as another blow to national pride on a project that is more than a decade behind schedule. While Western intelligence officials believe Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, Iran insists the project’s goals are peaceful.
The Russian scientists’ report to the Kremlin, a copy of which has been seen by The Daily Telegraph, concludes that, despite “performing simple, basic tests” on the Bushehr reactor, the Russian team “cannot guarantee safe activation of the reactor”.
It also accuses the Iranian management team, which is under intense political pressure to stick to the deadline, of “not exhibiting the professional and moral responsibility” that is normally required. They accuse the Iranians of having “disregard for human life” and warn that Russia could find itself blamed for “another Chernobyl” if it allows Bushehr to go ahead.
While it’s natural that the Russians would be concerned about being blamed, in such a scenario it’s a bit difficult to see how US interests would be served if vital shipping lanes and America’s Gulf allies were also put in jeopardy.
An American expert in nuclear intelligence told the New York Times “that Israel worked in collaboration with the United States in targeting Iran, but that Washington was eager for ‘plausible deniability'” — plausible deniability that the US no longer has.
Does this raise the possibility that the US might need to discreetly intervene to prevent an Israeli-made disaster?
New York Times sick of Israel
I have no idea how accurate the reporting is here, but Israel Today Magazine has a colorful account of what it headlines as an Israeli diplomat getting “ambushed” by the New York Times editorial team, under the direction of “rabid columnist” Tom Friedman.
The New York Times, flagship of the liberal American media, has never been a friend of the Jewish state. But the newspaper’s aversion to Israel turned to open hostility this month when its top editors ambushed and tore into an unsuspecting senior official from the Israeli Consulate in New York City.
The Israeli official was invited by the Times editors, among them rabid columnist Thomas Friedman, to meet with them at their office. Being a veteran at dealing with the American media, the official assumed the invitation was for a friendly discussion and perhaps an interview regarding the peace process and other matters of importance to Israel.
The Israeli had no idea he was being invited for what he described as a lynch.
As the meeting started, the Times editors – most of them Jews, and one of them a former Israeli – began to attack the Israeli diplomat, and refused to give him even a moment to respond.
They blamed Israel for everything, the diplomat told Israel Today.
The Times editors insisted the breakdown of the peace process was Israel’s fault, that the lack of peace was Israel’s fault, and were adamant that Israel had given nothing to the Palestinians. They accused Israel of being an extremist and racist state, and blasted the diplomat for Israel’s “ill-treatment” of President Barack Obama.
In short, the Times staff informed the Israeli in no uncertain terms that they were sick of his country.
The diplomat told us he was shocked by the attack. He tried to respond, but the Times editors were not interested in hearing his arguments.
“I asked them,” said the diplomat, “We haven’t given the Palestinians anything? How can you say that? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke with his party platform and implemented a 10-month Jewish building freeze, and what did we get in return? More Palestinian refusal to negotiate.”
According to the Israeli, the Times editors responded: “Yes, yes. Of course you are going to start telling us about how Israel’s security needs are not being met. You just don’t get it that we are sick of hearing about that.”
There is little doubt that this ambush was led by Friedman, whose hostility toward Israel in his recent columns has surprised even his liberal friends in the Jewish state.
In recent articles, Friedman has accused Israel of being a spoiled child, crazy and extremist. He insisted that the US stop being Israel’s “enabler,” and pointed out that the rest of the world is fully on the side of the Palestinians, so why not America?
Wrote Friedman in one of his columns: “Israel, when America – which has given you billions over the past 50 years and defended you in the international arena – asks you to stop building settlements for three months in order to jump start peace talks, there is only one correct answer, and that is ‘yes, whatever you say.’”
Leiberman suggests New York Times could be investigated
The Guardian reports:
Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate homeland security committee, told Fox News: “To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department.”
Lieberman also said that the department of justice should indict Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, under the 1917 Espionage Act and try to extradite him from the UK. Asked why this had not happened, Lieberman admitted there was probably an argument going on over how to charge Assange.
“I think this is the most serious violation of the Espionage Act in our history,” Lieberman said, adding: “It sure looks to me that Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the Espionage Act.”
At the daily state department briefing in Washington, DC, Philip Crowley, the department’s press spokesman, said: “What WikiLeaks has done is a crime under US law.”
The Guardian appears to have misquoted Crowley. According to the transcript of yesterday’s briefing, he said:
What we’re investigating is a crime under U.S. law. The provision of 250,000 classified documents from someone inside the government to someone outside the government is a crime. We are investigating it. And as we’ve said, we will hold those responsible fully accountable. That investigation is still ongoing.
From all the information currently available, the only individual who is believed to have committed a crime is Private First Class Bradley Manning. He has been has been arrested and charged with the unauthorized use and disclosure of classified information.
The New York Times reporter David Sanger told NPR:
The Times knew that this material was going to be out there anyway. We didn’t get the initial leak,” he says. “If we had done nothing — if we had ignored it — I think it would have looked strange. I think that also would have been irresponsible. It is the responsibility of American journalism, back to the founding of this country, to get out and try to grapple with the hardest issues of the day and to do it independently of the government.
Which is why the Times‘ sycophantic executive editor, Bill Keller, consulted with the administration for advice on each of the cables it has published. So much for “independence.”
Julian Assange and the power of asymmetric fear
The counterpart of asymmetric warfare is asymmetric fear — a form of mass hysteria in which smaller and smaller threats provoke more and more extreme reactions.
The arc that connects Osama bin Laden to Julian Assange describes the pathology of these times: fear has become our only compass.
When the United States Secretary of State describes the release of reams of somewhat embarrassing but generally informative cables as “an attack on the international community,” and while opinion makers call for Assange’s arrest, assassination or execution, we shouldn’t be asking how much harm WikiLeaks can do, but whether the political establishment in America is becoming unhinged.
David Samuels writes:
Julian Assange and Pfc Bradley Manning have done a huge public service by making hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents available on Wikileaks — and, predictably, no one is grateful. Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces up to 52 years in prison. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is not allowed to see his parents or other outside visitors.
Assange, the organizing brain of Wikileaks, enjoys a higher degree of freedom living as a hunted man in England under the close surveillance of domestic and foreign intelligence agencies — but probably not for long. Not since President Richard Nixon directed his minions to go after Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan – “a vicious antiwar type,” an enraged Nixon called him on the Watergate tapes — has a working journalist and his source been subjected to the kind of official intimidation and threats that have been directed at Assange and Manning by high-ranking members of the Obama Administration.
Published reports suggest that a joint Justice Department-Pentagon team of investigators is exploring the possibility of charging Assange under the Espionage Act, which could lead to decades in jail. “This is not saber-rattling,” said Attorney General Eric Holder, commenting on the possibility that Assange will be prosecuted by the government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Wikileaks disclosures “an attack on the international community” that endangered innocent people. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested in somewhat Orwellian fashion that “such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government.”
Politics Daily reports:
For the past several months, Assange has widely believed to have been in hiding somewhere in the United Kingdom. The public perception has been one of a man hunt.
But according to his U.K.-based lawyer, Mark Stephens, Scotland Yard has actually had precise knowledge of Assange’s whereabouts since he arrived in this country in October. Indeed, Stephens maintains, they even have a phone number should they wish to reach him.
“I feel like I am sitting in the middle of a surreal Swedish fairytale,” Stephens said. “The trolls keep threatening to come on and keep making noises off stage. But at the moment, no appearance from them.”
Apparently, the delay in Assange’s apprehension stems from the fact that the original warrant listed the maximum penalty only for the most serious charge (in this case, rape), rather than for all of the charges (which include sexual molestation and unlawful coercion). Assuming the new warrant fulfills the letter of the law, Soca will then be legally obliged to authorize the police to arrest Julian Assange.
Baruch Weiss, a former federal prosecutor who served in the Treasury and Homeland Security departments, asks:
What law did Assange violate? It will surprise many that there is no statute making it illegal to reveal classified information. There are statutes that criminalize the disclosure of very specific types of classified information, such as the identity of a covert operative (think Valerie Plame) or “codes, ciphers or cryptographic systems.” But there is no catch-all law that simply says, “Thou shalt not disclose classified information.”
Indeed, when Congress tried to enact such a statute, President Bill Clinton sensibly vetoed it. His reason: The government suffers from such an overclassification problem – some intelligence agencies classify even newspaper articles – that a law of this sort would end up criminalizing the disclosure of innocuous information. And even that vetoed statute would have applied only to government officials, not to private individuals or journalists.
Instead, prosecutors in the Assange case, like the prosecutors in the AIPAC case I handled, would resort to the Espionage Act of 1917, an archaic, World War I-era statute that prohibits “willfully” disclosing “information relating to the national defense.” According to Judge T.S. Ellis in the AIPAC case, this means that the prosecution must prove, among other things, that a defendant knew that the information he was disclosing was potentially damaging to national security and that he was violating the law.
Here, Assange can make the department’s case especially difficult. Well before publishing the cables, he wrote a letter to the U.S. government, delivered to our ambassador in London, inviting suggestions for redactions. The State Department refused. Assange then wrote another letter to State, reiterating that “WikiLeaks has absolutely no desire to put individual persons at significant risk of harm, nor do we wish to harm the national security of the United States.”
In that second letter, Assange stated that the department’s refusal to discuss redactions “leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful.” He then indicated that WikiLeaks was undertaking redactions on its own.
In an interview with the BBC, Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, said that his paper presented to the Obama administration all the cables they planned on publishing and sought and received advice on making redactions and on national security issues. The fact that the administration was willing to enter into discussions with the Times but not Wikileaks, suggests that the administration has less concern about security risks than it does with sustaining the incestuous relationship it enjoys with its favorite newspaper.
A press release just issued by Wikileaks says the Julian Assange Defense Fund has been frozen.
The Swiss Bank Post Finance today issues a press release stating that it had frozen Julian Assange’s defense fund and personal assets (31K EUR) after reviewing him as a “high profile” individual.
The technicality used to seize the defense fund was that Mr. Assange, as a homeless refugee attempting to gain residency in Switzerland, had used his lawyers address in Geneva for the bank’s correspondence.
Late last week, the internet payment giant PayPal, froze 60Keur of donations to the German charity the Wau Holland Foundation, which were targeted to promote the sharing of knowledge via WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks and Julian have lost 100Keur in assets this week.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Cablegate exposure is how it is throwing into relief the power dynamics between supposedly independent states like Switzerland, Sweden and Australia.
WikiLeaks also has public bank accounts in Iceland (preferred) and Germany.
Please help cover our expenditures while we fight to get our assets back.
http://wikileaks.ch/support.html
New York Times beats drums for war
The terrorist-naming game
On September 11, 2001, George Bush changed the way Americans look at the world and the success with which he accomplished this feat is evident in the fact that his perspective largely remains unchallenged — even among many of his most outspoken critics. Bush’s simplistic for-us-or-against-us formula was transparently emotive yet utterly effective.
For almost a decade, Americans have been told to look at the world through the lens of “terrorism” and while differences of opinion exist about whether the lens has too wide or narrow an angle or about the extent to which it brings things into focus, those of us who say the lens is so deeply flawed that it should be scrapped, remain in a minority.
The Obama administration may now refrain from using the term itself, preferring instead “violent extremists,” but the change is merely cosmetic (as are so many other “changes” in the seamless continuity between the Bush- and post-Bush eras).
A couple of days ago Philip Weiss drew attention to the fact that when former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni described her parents as “freedom fighters,” Deborah Solomon, her interviewer in the New York Times, echoed Livni’s sentiment by saying that the fight for Israel’s independence took place in “a more romantic era.”
As Weiss notes, Livni’s parents belonged to the Irgun, the Zionist group which blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, killing 91 and injuring 46.
The first public account of what had happened that day was accidentally released in advance of the bombing.
In By Blood and Fire, Thurston Clark writes:
“Jewish terrorists have just blown up the King David Hotel!” This short message was received by the London Bureau of United Press International (UPI) shortly after noon, Palestine time. It was signed by a UPI stringer in Palestine who was also a secret member of the Irgun. The stringer had learned about Operation Chick but did not know it had been postponed for an hour. Hoping to scoop his colleagues, he had filed a report minutes before 11.00. A British censor had routinely stamped his cable without reading it.
The UPI London Bureau chief thought the message too terse. There were not enough details. He decided against putting it on the agency’s wire for radio and press until receiving further confirmation that the hotel had been destroyed.
Despite the efforts of Irgun leaders to restrict knowledge of the target and timing of Operation Chick, there were numerous other leaks. Leaders in both the Haganah and Stern Gang knew about the operation. Friends warned friends. The King David had an extraordinary number of last-minute room cancellations. In the Secretariat [the King David’s south wing that housed the headquarters of the British government in Palestine], more than the usual number of Jewish typists and clerks called in sick.
The next day the British prime minister, Clement Attlee referred to the bombing as an “insane act of terrorism” while a few days later the US president, Harry Truman, wrote “the inhuman crime committed… calls for the strongest action against terrorism…”
That was 64 years ago. From the sheltered perch of the New York Times, that’s apparently far enough back in history that it can now be referred to as a “romantic era.”
It’s hardly surprising then that many observers with an interest in justice for Palestinians take offense at the New York Times’ complicity in papering over the reality of Jewish terrorism. Yet here’s the irony: the effort to promote an unbiased use of the term “terrorism” simply plays into the hands of the Israelis.
The word has only one purpose: to forestall consideration of the political motivation for acts of violence. Invoke the word with the utmost gravity and then you can use your moral indignation and outrage to smother intelligent analysis. Terrorists do what they do because they are in the terrorism business — it’s in their blood.
So, when Tzipi Livni calls her parents freedom fighters, I have no problem with that — she is alluding to what they believed they were fighting for rather than the methods they employed. Moreover, by calling people who planted bombs and blew up civilians in the pursuit of their political goals, “freedom fighters,” Livni makes it clear that she understands that “terrorism” is a subjective term employed for an effect.
When Ehud Barak a few years ago acknowledged that had he been raised a Palestinian he too would have joined one of the so-called terrorist organizations, he was not describing an extraordinary epiphany he had gone through in recognizing the plight of the Palestinians. He was merely being candid about parallels between groups such as the Irgun and Hamas — parallels that many Israelis see but less often voice.
The big issue is not whether the methods employed by Zionist groups such as the Irgun could be justified but whether the political goals these groups were fighting for were legitimate. Zionism would not have acquired more legitimacy if it had simply found non-violent means through which it could accomplish its goal of driving much of the non-Jewish population out of Palestine.
We live in an era in which “terrorism” — as a phenomenon to be opposed — has become the primary bulwark through which Zionism defends itself from scrutiny. Keep on playing the terrorist-naming game and the Zionists win.
Jews can report on Palestinians, but the other way ’round?
Ali Abunimah reflects on the controversy surrounding Ethan Bronner, the New York Times‘ Jerusalem bureau chief whose son recently enrolled in the Israeli army:
While Jews/Americans may report on Palestinians, the converse is not true. Why is this? It must be — I assume — because there is an inherent, perhaps unacknowledged assumption that an Arab/Palestinian is or will be automatically biased against Israelis/Jews. Whereas, we are supposed to accept that in no case is a Jewish reporter who identifies with Israel biased even when his son has joined an occupation army that is raiding Palestinian refugee camps and communities dozens of times per week. Seriously?
To what can we attribute this double-standard? I am afraid it smacks of racism.
I also have a long memory — Back in 1995, NPR fired Maureen Meehan because it was claimed she had not adequately disclosed that her husband had worked as an adviser to the Palestinian Authority. Of course we did not have blogs in those days, but I still do not remember an outpouring in her defense from the mainstream media. Hmmm. I wonder why?
Alison Weir has this suggestion:
New York Times Editor Bill Keller, in defending his decision to retain Bronner as their bureau chief despite Bronner’s conflict of interest and profoundly flawed track record, writes that he feels Bronner’s intimate family ties with Israel “supply a measure of sophistication about Israel and its adversaries.”
If the Times actually does want full, unbiased reporting on this region (there is little to indicate this, but let’s imagine it is so), it is essential that the Times also have bureaus in the Palestinian Territories; ideally, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, headed by people with equal “sophistication” about Palestine and its adversaries.
Fortunately for the Times, a journalist with an excellent track record for journalism in the area and, no doubt, considerable “sophistication,” is now available. Jared Malsin, a Jewish-American 2007 Yale graduate, was until recently the chief English editor at Ma’an News, the largest independent news organization in the West Bank and an excellent source of news.
Questioning the New York Times
When Electronic Intifada contacted the New York Times‘ Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner to ask him if it was true his son had just joined the Israeli army and if so whether he thought this would create a conflict of interest, the newspaper avoided giving a straight answer. It gave what has become so familiar — a response which in the paper’s scrupulously measured but condescending tone implicitly said: who are you to question our judgment?
“Mr. Bronner’s son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner’s coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case.”
To be oblique and not simply say, yes, Bronner’s son is in the IDF, but to instead say he “makes his own decisions,” is in effect to say: What gives you the audacity Mr Abunimah to think that we should be obliged to directly answer your meddlesome questions?
Similarly, the paper’s own public editor Clark Hoyt gets waved off by executive editor Bill Keller who simultaneously clearly feels obliged to pay mock homage to the public editor’s role. Lest readers be confused because they thought Hoyt is what the paper says — “the readers’ representative” — Keller gets all slimy and says that he actually has more respect for the readers than does Hoyt and that’s why Bronner won’t be getting reassigned. Keller, unlike Hoyt (Keller claims), believes that the paper’s readers are fully capable of distinguishing between appearance and reality. In this case that presumably means that they can see that the appearance of a conflict of interest for Ethan Bronner does not correspond with an actual conflict of interest.
There is one factual point, central to the discussion, that Hoyt gets wrong when he quotes a reader:
Linda Mamoun of Boulder, Colo., wrote that although she found Bronner’s coverage “impressively well-written and relatively even-handed,” his position “should not be held by anyone with military ties to the state of Israel.” His son has the direct ties, not Bronner. But is that still too close for comfort?
Actually, the reader was right: it is Bronner, not his son, who has ties to the state of Israel.
As minister of defense, Ehud Barak does not have ties to the state of Israel. He is part of the state. Likewise Bronner’s son, who happens to be at the other end of the chain of command, is now just as much a part of the state.
As for the question about the potential conflict of interest, I don’t take it as a given that Bronner’s connection to the IDF will necessarily cloud his judgment. On the contrary, it could sharpen his focus.
The next time Israel makes its case for war, Bronner may stand at risk of losing a son. Maybe that will drive this reporter to pose tougher questions.
On the other hand, when it comes to the IDF’s policy of seeking zero risk for Israeli soldiers, it’s hard to imagine Bronner covering that issue with any semblance of impartiality.
Ultimately, the story here is the perennial story of the New York Times. It’s not about conflicts of interest as much as it’s about the paper’s unremitting disdain towards its critics.
