I'm a newbie here, and am very impressed by the debate and discussion here. Thank you all for your wit, information, and passion!
What a great name, MsSpent! Welcome. This is going to be fun having you aboard.
MsSpent, WELCOME to A2K. c.i.
Hey, someone change that
'q' in the title to an
'n' and let's start all over...
Quote:The Pentagon is advocating a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran's ruling ayatollahs as the only way to stop the country's nuclear weapons ambitions, senior State Department and Pentagon officials told ABCNEWS.
The proposal, which would include covert sponsorship of a group currently deemed terrorist by the U.S. government, is not new, and has not won favor with enough top officials to be acted upon.
But sources say it is a viable option that is getting a new look as the administration ramps up its rhetoric against Iran, and it is likely to be one of the top items on the agenda as high-level U.S. policymakers meet today to discuss how to deal with the Islamic republic.
The Pentagon's proposal includes using all available points of pressure on the Iranian regime, including backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedeen e Khalq, a group currently branded as terrorist by the United States.
Start practicing that name, because we're going to be hearing a lot more of it.
Kara wrote:Scrat, I'm just listening.
Well, that's more than most of the people here can say. Keep listening. You learn a lot that way.
Hi Kara - just keep a -listening. Most of us here also try to read and exchange information. That child-tax credit would have been a great help to those families ruled ineligible.
PD - you think it stops there? Now, since it appears that we need ever more troops to "enforce the peace" (a phrase in a Times story today), what do we send to Iran? And after Iran? Has this Bush cabal finally landed in the land of let's pretend?
Gel - what a beautiful piece.
mamajuana wrote:PD - you think it stops there? Now, since it appears that we need ever more troops to "enforce the peace" (a phrase in a Times story today), what do we send to Iran? And after Iran?
Apparently, you've forgotten that registration for the draft was reinstituted . . .
Yes, I did. Solves the job situation.
A great empi . . . nation such as ours should never risk running out of cannon fodder at need . . .
By Michael Getler
The Washington Post
Michael Getler is ombudsman for the Post.
The recent problems at The New York Times involving a reporter with a long record of plagiarizing and fabricating stories have touched a nerve with readers of other newspapers, including The Washington Post. Readers who have been writing or calling me say they don't suspect the same kind of brazen, large-scale deception by a troubled individual. But their concerns add up to a real and growing credibility problem for news organizations, especially in today's environment.
That environment includes what seems to me, and a fair number of readers, to be a steady increase in the number of major stories attributed to anonymous sources and a sense that intelligence information is being politicized and that reporters aren't probing hard enough against the defenses of an administration with an effective, disciplined and restrictive attitude toward information control.
The elements of the complaints are these: The United States has just carried out a quick and militarily successful attack on Iraq. Yet major justifications for the attack -- the existence of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's link to the al-Qaeda terrorist network that carried out the 9/11 attacks -- have not been confirmed. Before the war, many stories -- some from the administration on the record but others from unnamed sources -- pointed with certainty to the existence of these weapons.
In recent weeks, several articles have included allegations against Syria and Iran that are similar to the allegations against Iraq that preceded the war. Another string of stories in a number of papers reported allegedly unfriendly acts by France, which led the opposition to the war.
Some of these stories were based on sources identified only as "intelligence officials" or "senior administration officials" or other such useless descriptions. One Washington Post reader called attention to the administration's policy on preemptive war, which was used against Iraq and could be used again against Syria or Iran.
Another charged that The Washington Post was, perhaps unwittingly,
Another asked: "Why do you believe the intelligence reports that claim al-Qaeda is responsible for a certain event? Why not at least a disclaimer that these are the same sources that gave you [information on the existence of] weapons of mass destruction?"
The Washington Post has done a good job in reporting the denials of these accusations by Syria, Iran and France. Of course, some or all of the allegations may turn out to be true, and conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction may be found in time. But some readers are greatly skeptical, and that skepticism is being reinforced by a lack of confidence caused by the extent of anonymous sourcing.
The Washington Post, like other major news organizations, has rules about sourcing. It is naive to think that very sensitive material can be ferreted out without sometimes allowing sources anonymity. But The Post's guidelines call for reporters to make every effort to get the material on the record and, failing that, to report the reason for not disclosing identities and to provide as much other information about identity and motivation as possible. My impression is that these rules have largely fallen by the wayside, along with demands by editors to know sources' identities, because the use of unnamed sources has become so routine. The Bush administration wins simply by refusing to allow the use of any attribution other than "senior administration officials."
Several other readers believe that The Post "has some problems of its own with the veracity of its reporting," as one put it. He was referring to the paper's exclusive April 3 front-page account of how Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, according to "US officials," fought during an Iraqi ambush, continued firing after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds and being stabbed, and shot several Iraqi soldiers before running out of ammunition. This account, which has remained exclusive to The Post, is by far the story that readers continue to question most. I wrote a column about this on April 20, but the questioning, which has nothing to do with Pfc. Lynch but everything to do with anonymous news sources, continues. In fact, it is increasing as journalism is put in the spotlight. If there is a different version, or a confirming version, of this that is authoritative, I hope somebody will write it, along with a more probing account of her rescue. (See "Saving Private Lynch, Take Two" in Today's May 23 issue. -- Ed.)
Did you know that 1,087,613 additional school teachers could be hired for one year (whole USA) for the money, paid until this very minute for the war?
Look up this (and other figures) at
Cost of War in Iraq
Walter Hinteler wrote:Did you know that 1,087,613 additional school teachers could be hired for one year (whole USA) for the money, paid until this very minute for the war?
Really? I wonder if you can find stats for how many starving children could be fed each year with the money we'd save if we just fired all public school teachers and closed all public schools. I bet we could feed a whole bunch of starving people with that money...
You bet . . .
And then the ol' Shrub's buddies in the Christian Right could be assured that our younguns were no longer being taught dangerous ideas . . . or being taught anything, which is what they would most like to see . . .
Scrat, If our government fired all the school teachers in this country, it won't be long until everybody in this country and many others will be starving - not only the children. Without education, our economy and the rest of the world's will suffer. If you can't see that, further discussion is useless. c.i.
CI - If you can't see the point I was trying to illustrate, then yes, further discussion would get us nowhere. Ciao!
The sad right <sigh>
Here is something to muse over:
Quote:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=5&u=/nm/20030527/ts_nm/iraq_journalists_cpj_dc_4
Journalist Deaths in Baghdad Hotel 'Avoidable'-CPJ
Tue May 27, 2:48 PM ET
By Grant McCool
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The killing of two journalists, including a Reuters TV cameraman, by U.S. tank fire in Baghdad in April was not deliberate but was avoidable, a journalist's watchdog group said on Tuesday.
A report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists questioned U.S. military statements that the tank was responding to hostile fire from the hotel housing the reporters, saying there was no evidence for that.
..
CPJ said its request to the Defense Department to interview tank commander Capt. Philip Wolford of the 3rd Infantry Division's 4th Battalion 64th Armor Regiment was pending. It said that in media interviews, Wolford appeared to contradict his own statements and those of other officers.
CPJ said photographs taken from the approximate point on a bridge where the shell was fired show a large sign "Hotel Palestine" in English. CPJ said the sign might not have been clear to the naked eye but could be seen with binoculars.
"He (Wolford) said on the one hand that the tank that fired on the Palestine Hotel was 'returning' fire but clearly stated at other times that the tank was firing at a spotter with binoculars," the CPJ report said.
OOps -- here is some news about the new budget which hit the fan today. In spite of efforts to stop this, the Bush administration saved a few hours of Iraq warbucks by cutting out of the bill the promised increase in child tax credits for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Yup. Middle class get their increase. Uppermiddles get their increase. But better a few bennies to the folks at UDI and Vinnell than give a tax break to those with annual incomes under $20,000. There will be a stink about this, and there should be. It comes as the Financial Times goes up against Bush on the budget.
Tartarin,
Apart from supporting your bias against the current Administration, what does your last post have to to with the topic of this thread?
Georgeob -- it's in response to a post Cicerone made, above. Hurts, doesn't it!
