Pearls for the swine ?

Read (English) about the US & "Hate
Press" in venezuela :

http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezu
ela

Your point, I take it from your Indymedia piece, is that Venezuelan journalists, due to what you and Mondediplo.com claim is overwhelming support of dissident elements, are morally liable for any violence that results from the current crisis.

Claims made by Mondediplo are certainly serious, but I find the publication's credibility somewhat lacking. In every other article the writers parrot the same old tired Euro-left arguments, lacking any serious evidence to back them up. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that if 95% of Venezuela's media is secretly controlled by the evil Bush regime.

As 9-11 proves (unless you think it was all planned by the Bushies or Jews, which would automatically disqualify you from any reasonable discussion) our intelligence is incapable of protecting our homeland. Remember the bay of pigs? The CIA is not so good at overthrowing truly popular dictators. To say that this mass protest in Venezuela is the result of foreign interventionism ignores the size of anti-Chavez protests or poll numbers currently coming out of the country. The current US administration has no great love of Chavez (and the feeling is mutual), but America is incapable of magically paying off a few editors and causing a revolution. To suggest otherwise is to consider the Venezuelan people incapable of independent thought, a concept I find ridiculous.

Coming to the Press' role in the current crisis, Mondediplo claims "Never even[sic] in Latin American history has the media been so directly involved in a political coup." This is almost certainly true, because much of Latin America (the parts where coups were likely to take place) never had a free press before the end of the cold war. And only a free press is capable of airing dissenting views such as these. The quotes the Author provides are certainly provocative; however, they're no more outrageous than any number of headlines coming out of Europe or the UK railing against the USA.

And if there is a legitimate overstepping of Hugo Chavez' presidential authority, is it not the press' job to rally the populous against it? Journalism should try to be fair and balanced, but punditry and editors have no such requirement in free societies. And why can't Chavez combat this bad press with his own state-run media? Surely if he was in the right, he could defeat all these supposed lies. But the opposition to him seems to grow. Funny that...

The headline for the article you cite, "How Hate Media Incited The Coup Against The President", is pure hyperbole. Your "collaborators in the "War on terrorism"-Killing Fields" phrase on your Indymedia post is also pure silly rhetoric. Comparing US action against the Taliban and the upcoming war on Iraq with the Khmer Rouge's massacre of millions is just plain stupid. You present no evidence of any signifigance in your articlce, and there's nothing in them that could even begin to persuade me to change any of my opinions. Indymedia is also not widely percieved as a fair and balanced information site. You've got a major agenda, and it prevents me from taking your message seriously.

Pearls before swine indeed.

And your Napoleon quote is still non-sequitur and coming from the mouth of a vicious 19th century tyrant.

HOW THEN ARE AMERICANS PERCEIVED ?

New York Times today : January 25, 2003

Ashcroft Soaks Up a World of Complaints
By ALAN COWELL

AVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 24 — Attorney
General John Ashcroft came here today to
explain to the world's rich, powerful and
just plain pushy the Bush
administration's tactics in its campaign
against terror. In the process, he faced a
barrage of questions, not all of them from
the usual suspects.

Paul Sagan, an American technology
executive from Cambridge, Mass., for
instance, told Mr. Ashcroft after lunch in
an luxury hotel: "I'm concerned about the
way Americans are perceived. Why do you
think we are perceived as being not on
the right side by a lot of the world? Often
we are seen on the wrong side."

Earlier, at a meeting of the World
Economic Forum — an annual gathering
of some 2,000 business, political,
religious and other leaders — Kumi
Naidoo, head of an umbrella organization
of civil rights groups, took Mr. Ashcroft to
task over the way America has conducted
its antiterror campaign since Sept. 11.

"We are seeing large levels of alienation
across this planet from the war on
terrorism," he said in one of several
sharp exchanges with Mr. Ashcroft. "What
we are saying is that certain fundamental
tenets of democracy are being violated."

Kenneth Roth, who is the head of Human
Rights Watch U.S.A, said America's
"unwillingness to be bound by
international standards has bred distrust
and is harming the U.S.'s standing in the
world and the war against terrorism."

At a separate session yesterday,
Anne-Marie Slaughter, a professor at
Princeton, said the central issue being
debated in the world now was American
power and the opposition to it.

Recalling that the World Economic Forum
met last year in New York City in part out
of sympathy following the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks on the World Trade Center,
Professor Slaughter added, "The agenda
has shifted."

The response by American participants to
the criticism today seemed to be that the
Bush administration can live with dueling
perceptions of the United States as both
protector and persecutor.

"There may be many people who don't
like the pre-eminence of America," said
David Dreier, a Republican congressman
from California, another participant. "But
they do like Americans to be there" in
times of crisis.

"The U.S. is essentially a provider of most
of the building blocks of international
peace and security," said Richard Haass,
a State Department official. Or, as
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of
Delaware, added: "Nobody likes the big
guy on the block. We are every country's
problem and every country's solution."

As the United States prepares for
possible war with Iraq, the challenge
facing Mr. Ashcroft and other American
officials is to counter the argument from
critics in Europe and the Arab and Muslim
world that the twin wars on terror and Iraq
will create so much resentment that it will
breed a new generation of anti-American
terrorists.

While Mr. Ashcroft said that the American
aim was to prevent acts of terror before
they took place rather than prosecute the
perpetrators afterward, Mahathir bin
Mohamad, the prime minister of Malaysia,
turned to the attorney general across a
stage and, in front of hundreds of
participants, said, "To say you must do
preventive actions irrespective of the
causes is wrong."

The terrorists who attacked the World
Trade Center "did it because they were
incensed with something and we have to
find out why they were incensed," Mr.
Mahathir said. "We should try not to
amplify the situation, anger them more
and lead more people to join this group of
people."

Mr. Ashcroft replied, "I am not prepared to
say we have to give up values to appease
the terrorist."

Critics from the United States, Europe
and the Muslim world specifically
challenged many of the Bush
administration's antiterrorism measures,
including its detention of prisoners at
Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, its refusal to
identify by name people detained in the
United States and its decision to register
foreigners from selected, mostly Muslim,
nations.

It is, however, the looming possibility of
war with Iraq that underpins a sense
among some critics that Washington's
overwhelming dominance as the world's
only superpower has somehow lessened
its standing in the world. "We expect more
wise guy than big guy," said Amr Moussa,
the secretary general of the Arab League.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times
Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy

Thank God/Allah/Jahweh et al : TIME/CNN
has a poll going on, showing what people
think about the United States of America :

http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/pe
ace2003.html?cnn=yes

:-)

Terror War : The American Administration
Is A Bloodthirsty Wild Animal

by Harold Pinter - December 11, 2002

Earlier this year, I had a major operation
for cancer. The operation and its after
effects were something of a nightmare. I
felt I was a man unable to swim bobbing
about under water in a deep dark endless
ocean. But I did not drown and I am very
glad to be alive.

However, I found that to emerge from a
personal nightmare was to enter an
infinitely more pervasive public nightmare
- the nightmare of American hysteria,
ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and
belligerence; the most powerful nation
the world has ever known effectively
waging war against the rest of the world.

"If you are not with us, you are against
us," President George W. Bush has said.
He has also said: "We will not allow the
world's worst weapons to remain in the
hands of the world's worst leaders." Quite
right. Look in the mirror, chum. That's you.

America is at this moment developing
advanced systems of "weapons of mass
destruction" and is prepared to use them
where it sees fit. It has more of them than
the rest of the world put together. It has
walked away from international
agreements on biological and chemical
weapons, refusing to allow inspection of
its own factories. The hypocrisy behind its
public declarations and its own actions is
almost a joke.

America believes that the 3,000 deaths in
New York are the only deaths that count,
the only deaths that matter. They are
American deaths. Other deaths are
unreal, abstract, of no consequence.

The 3,000 deaths in Afghanistan are
never referred to. The hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi children dead through
American and British sanctions which
have deprived them of essential
medicines are never referred to.

The effect of depleted uranium, used by
America in the Gulf war, is never referred
to. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly
high. Babies are born with no brain, no
eyes, no genitals. Where they do have
ears, mouths or rectums, all that issues
from these orifices is blood.

The 200,000 deaths in East Timor in
1975 brought about by the Indonesian
government but inspired and supported
by America are never referred to. The
500,000 deaths in Guatemala, Chile, El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Argentina
and Haiti, in actions supported and
subsidised by America, are never referred
to.

The millions of deaths in Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia are no longer referred to.
The desperate plight of the Palestinian
people, the central factor in world unrest,
is hardly referred to.

But what a misjudgment of the present
and what a misreading of history this is.
People do not forget. They do not forget
the death of their fellows, they do not
forget torture and mutilation, they do not
forget injustice, they do not forget
oppression, they do not forget the
terrorism of mighty powers. They not only
don't forget: they also strike back.

The atrocity in New York was predictable
and inevitable. It was an act of retaliation
against constant and systematic
manifestations of state terrorism on the
part of America over many years, in all
parts of the world.

In Britain, the public is now being warned
to be "vigilant" in preparation for potential
terrorist acts. The language is in itself
preposterous. How will - or can - public
vigilance be embodied? Wearing a scarf
over your mouth to keep out poison gas?

However, terrorist attacks are quite likely,
the inevitable result of our Prime
Minister's contemptible and shameful
subservience to America. Apparently a
terrorist poison gas attack on the London
Underground system was recently
prevented.

But such an act may indeed take place.
Thousands of schoolchildren travel on
the Underground every day. If there is a
poison gas attack from which they die, the
responsibility will rest entirely on the
shoulders of our Prime Minister.
Needless to say, the Prime Minister does
not travel on the Underground himself.

The planned war against Iraq is in fact a
plan for premeditated murder of
thousands of civilians in order,
apparently, to rescue them from their
dictator.

America and Britain are pursuing a
course that can lead only to an escalation
of violence throughout the world and
finally to catastrophe. It is obvious,
however, that America is bursting at the
seams to attack Iraq.

I believe that it will do this not only to take
control of Iraqi oil, but also because the
American administration is now a
bloodthirsty wild animal. Bombs are its
only vocabulary. Many Americans, we
know, are horrified by the posture of their
government, but seem to be helpless.

Unless Europe finds the solidarity,
intelligence, courage and will to
challenge and resist American power,
Europe itself will deserve Alexander
Herzen's declaration - "We are not the
doctors. We are the disease".

The article is taken from an address
given by Harold Pinter on receiving an
honorary degree at the University of Turin

Mr. Ruyssenaars,

You are welcome to continue posting items of relevance to my comment section. However, I ask that in the future you kindly refrain from posting entire articles. Post links instead. It is irritating to scroll down through these many pages of text when a link would do just as well. Thank you.

As to the specific articles you post, there's nothing of any interest in them. You seem to be under the faulty impression that I give two shakes of a dead dog's dick what the rest of the world, and Europe in particular, thinks about American foreign policy, or any members of the President's Cabinet. If this "world opinion" seems to think Libya is the best choice to head the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and that the United States is the greatest threat to world peace, then world opinion can go direct to hell for being the vile immoral shite that it is.

I am no particular fan of John Ashcroft, but he has not imposed martial law on America, and he hasn't rounded up all Muslims into concentration camps. The nice Arab family who lives downstairs from me hasn't been harassed by either police or the populous. In fact their son even has a cute little blond girlfriend and rides a skateboard.

You see, we have this little thing called the Bill Of Rights, and it might surprise you to learn that even us vicious war-mongers over here are actually quite fond of it. Compared to the treatment of non-Muslims in Islamofascist regimes throughout the Middle East, or indeed the treatment of Muslims in the suburban ghettos of Paris, America is an enlightened paradise of toleration.

But I am confused. Do you actually take Harold Pinter seriously? Now, I appreciate a good rant now and again, but Pinter is a pathetic whining little turd. How does Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and all the other past American mistakes (and I'm willing to admit that many of them were blatantly wrong) affect our current situation? In fact, aren't these past mistakes a prime reason to start fixing things, I.E. Saddam Hussein's evil regime? As for America being at war with the rest of the world, if that was indeed the case there would be about 5 billion fewer people in the radioactive craters that were once the world's cities. To us Americans, Pinter (and we are quite familiar with his "writings") is the laughable stereotype of all that's wrong the reactionary left in Europe. And his plays are pretentious crap.

Once again, you have provided nothing with any facts, or even any substance aside from a consistent hatred of the United States. If Pinter is the most compelling speaker for your point of view, your side has some serious problems.

One of the most compelling speakers for a
humane point of view is this American professor
and CIA-top analyst whom you probably know,
since he is famous amongst intellectuals, and in
his own words :

"I am in a position to know because, as the
Central Intelligence Agency's senior political
analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a
professor at the Army War College from 1988 to
2000, I was privy to much of the classified
material that flowed through Washington having
to do with the Persian Gulf."

http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/warcrime.html

But, what might he have meant with this "securing
the water for Israel" ?

And, pray say, why this criticism of the media ?

http://www.alhewar.org/SEPTEMBER%2011/role_
of_the_media.htm

I've also lived and worked for ten years in the
Arab world, accredited as foreign correspondent.

Are you seeing the light already ?

HR

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

Hitler: An Officer And A Gentleman?

History's warning regarding a compliant media.
by Henk Ruyssenaars

08/11/03: Foreign Press Foundation -The
Netherlands - Aug. 11th-2003 - Until the Russian
bullet hit officer Schultz, during the battle at
Stalingrad, he really was totally convinced that
Adolf Hitler was 'an Officer and a Gentleman', like
himself. And he explained why, while we sat at a
small round table in the wine cellar of his cozy
forest hotel, where he taught us how to drink vodka
like the Russians.

One side of his face was paralyzed by the bullet,
so he had to pull his lips ajar to get the vodka glass
in between. "It was the propaganda" he said,
"because in the Army - like in the rest of the Third
Reich - no other information than
Reichs-propaganda was allowed".

Officer Schultz survived the long march back
home, to a destroyed Germany, and started a
small family hotel at the Hariksee, just across the
border from Holland where my family lived.
Ex-officer Schultz was trying to cope with the harsh
life he for such a long time had known so little
about; a reality very different from the
army-propaganda in the newspapers.

The first time I met him, at age 13, on a family
holiday in his hotel, was in 1955. The Second
World-War just ended ten years ago, and Hitler's
bloody horror had been on the front pages all over
the world, for just as long.

And I still remember his explanation : " Why do you
think nobody - in the by German troops occupied
countries - was allowed to have a radio ? The
German Supreme Command didn't want any other
information than the German newspapers

and broadcasting to reach the people. It was their -
and their information alone - which counted. And
when I learned upon returning, in what way the
facts had been forged by Goebbels* , I understood
Hitler's Third Reich was a fake."

"Wir haben es nicht gewusst"

Mr. Schultz was not using the usual "Wir haben es
nicht gewusst"-excuse, about 'not knowing it all',
but carefully pointed out, that lack of facts and
information creates disasters. "You can brainwash
many people for a very long time" he said, "but you
can only fool them, if you control all the information
outlets; rewriting history."

And for the past decades- working abroad as a
foreign correspondent - I've seen the same
development in the States, but in my own country
the Netherlands too. Which was a very open and
progressive society before, but where also most
journalism now has fallen victim to commerce and
politics, and different points of view are not allowed
any more.

Like the United States, the Netherlands is mainly
run by the military-industrial complex
(SHELL-Philips-Unilever-Amro-ING-Akzo-Nobel
etc.etc.), having absorbed the politicians and
media already earlier. The effect is dishonest and
disastrous.

In a poll just published, it is indicated that in
Holland, with it's 16 million - badly informed -
inhabitants - a whopping fifty-six percent of the
people is supporting the US/UK-wars ? Since it's
the journalists which write, read and show the
selected information - they form the opinion.

There is absolutely no question about it : all those
lies, the fakes and the nonexistent evidence of this
or that, is put in our ears and eyes by my
'colleagues'; trying to brainwash us. This is not a
matter of 'shooting the messengers'; it's just telling
them that many of them are traitors, collaborators
and liars. They are selling our profession and
honor, forgetting they are working for the people,
and not the shareholders.

Holland, still a friend of the United States people

In Holland, still a friend of the United States
people, nowadays only the people at present
holding the reigns, support the
Bush/Wolfowitz-junta. Afghanistan and Iraq takes
its toll on Dutch-U.S. ties, because the population
has a feeling of being constantly misled. Like
officer Schultz. And like in the US, England or the
Third Reich, the collaborating journalists are to
blame.

Their 'effect' is for instance clearly shown in a poll
in Germany where journalists and Government are
mostly anti-war, and thus do not slide as much
'Newspeak' on the plates of the people they are
working for, as is done by the collaborating media
in Holland:

"Poll shows : George W. Bush; another big reason
Americans not very popular in Germany right
now". 

By Elisabeth Noelle  -  Allensbach Institute of
Public Opinion Research.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Poll, English: Link

A new survey of German public opinion leaves no
doubt that the Iraq war caused serious damage to
the German-U.S. relationship. Almost half the
respondents in our poll, conducted on behalf of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said the United
States and Europe have grown apart.

Although the Bush Administration made clear its
disapproval of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's
position on the conflict, this appears to have had
little impact in Germany, where 68 percent of
respondents backed the chancellor's definitive
?no? to the war and his argument that there was
insufficient justification for an American attack on
the country."

- And here's the proof for the umpteenth time, of
how journalists are 'guilty by association' :

Based upon the information distributed by the
journalists, in Germany 68 percent of the people
are saying 'No' to the US-wars.

If there's any truth in the Aug. 7th  -Dutch poll; 56
(fifty six) percent in Holland is thus saying 'Yes' to
the wars ? How come there's absolutely nobody I
know, nor my friends know in the rest of the
country, who supports the war ? Are all those polls
faked ?

When a debate about  the legitimacy of the Dutch
F-16's bombing in Afghanistan erupted, on the web
site of the Netherlands Journalists Association
(NVJ), the Forum was closed, four days ago.
 None of the Dutch mainstream media even
mentioned it ! ( http://www.villamedia.nl/ ). And
that's a very, very bad sign in itself: the rot sits
deep, and like with fishes : "Holland has started
rotting at the head".

Mossad 'Headquarters Europe' in Holland ?

The Dutch are paying the second highest taxes in
the world - Sweden is nr. ! - and are seeing
$-billions disappear in "secret agreements", with
mostly the US and Israël. The latter seems to be
'running' Holland's main airport 'Schiphol' close to
Amsterdam. Where - according to US-sources -
the 'Mossad', Secret Isr. Service has it's European
headquarters.

Dutch Attorney General Vrakking testified on Jan.
29, 1999, that the El Al security detachment at
Schiphol, was a branch of Mossad.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/10_14_02/Jetlin
er_Crash_/jetliner_crash_.html

Holland, secretly taking part in naval blockade of
North Korea.

For the bombing by the Dutch Air Force (up to
2000 missions), there is no UN-mandate, Holland
was not attacked nor threatened, so the bombing is
a war-crime, legal experts conclude. But also this
information may not be discussed, nor is
information given about Holland now secretly
taking part
in the naval blockade of North Korea, to start a
new war there. (The nuclear 'October Surprise?).

This information was published on the web site of
the Dutch Journalists Union (NVJ), shortly before it
was closed : "On July 23, 2003 a USA Today
report indicated that the United States had reached
an agreement with Japan, Australia, Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands,
Bulgaria, and Spain to intercept North Korean
ships suspected of carrying narcotics or weapons
materials."

In short : Officer Shultz saw 50 years ago what we
see again : as long as many people - under the
cover of journalism - collaborate instead of using
their own brains, Goebbels-propaganda is
triumphing. There is however hope for humanity,
and punishment for the warmongers, also among
the journalists:

"On December 15, 2002 the International Criminal
Tribunal for Afghanistan (ICTA) convened its first
public hearing in Tokyo to try President Bush. Four
hundred participants gathered to raise the curtain
with an opening declaration of the ?Culture of
Peace against "The Globalization of the
Military.

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?item
ID=3173§ionID=49

As was seen at the Nurnberg Trial; the tide always
turns.

And Goebbels and his collaborators ?

They were hanged.

Henk Ruyssenaars

FOREIGN  PRESS  FOUNDATION
Editor :  Henk Ruyssenaars
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl

* GOEBBELS : Background: 1943 had seen
Stalingrad, and a general series of reversals for
Germany across all battlefields. Nonetheless,
Goebbels finds reason for cheer as he looks
forward to 1944. Goebbels' basic argument is the
same from here to the end of the war: Germany
must win because otherwise it will be destroyed.

* The Source: Joseph Goebbels,
"Sylvesteransprache Dr. Goebbels am 31
Dezember 1943," Deutschland im Kampf , ed. A. J.
Berndt and von Wedel, Nr. 101/104 (Berlin:
Verlagsansalt Otto Stollberg, 1944), pp. 135-139.
 URL :
  http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb63.
htm

The Dutch author worked for many decades for
international A/V media as foreign correspondent,
of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the
Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing that every
bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism !

HR

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