With Friends Like These - More Fair and Balanced from NPR

A reader of this blog earlier noted his letter to the OMBOTsman regarding NPR's habit of always having supposedly liberal Daniel Schorr balanced out on every show by a more rightwing voice (can you say Foxista Juan Williams?).

This morning featured Juan Williams (and Scott Simon) parroting the right wing talking points on the Sotomayor nomination:

(Williams) "But on the face of it Scott, you'd have to say that her language - and if you took it for what it was worth - was racist."

That was the view from the right, but what about the liberal views on the weeks news? Consider these statements from Schorr talking with Simon later in the program:

• "We have not witnessed a nuclear explosion in anger since 1945..."
• "Nuclear weapons going steadily into more and more hands and not very responsible hands..."
• "Probably the most immediate dangerous is what's called proliferation. Israel has already had to bomb an installation in Syria which apparently had North Korean help in getting a nuclear weapon."
• "And so for the civilized world right now the immediate thing is to prevent further proliferation which may mean having to board and search ships at sea."

Holy smokes! However - civilized, responsible Schorr wasn't done yet. With a prompt from Simon, he's off an running on Iran:

(Simon): "Does the policy of extending a hand in friendship look a little naive this week?"
(Schorr): "I don't know if it looks, if it is naive, but it looks as though it's not getting very far..."

I'm not sure what hand of friendship Simon and Schorr are fantasizing about. Maybe they mean one of the AIPAC enriched palms of Dennis Ross - chief of Obama's non-diplomacy policy toward Iran.

Inskeep Freaks

Last night on Crooks and Liars I saw this post about Iran and wondered how long it would take NPR to join the orchestra of FEAR. Well, dang, they didn't waste anytime. This morning Inskeep was pounding the "Iran Might Go Nuclear" drum as hard as his rich little hands could bang it. Echoing his kindred spirits over at Fair and Balanced, Inskeep was very afraid about Iran having 1400 lbs. of enriched uranium which could, possibly, if, maybe, theoretically, someday become enough highly enriched uranium for...1 bomb!

Inskeep worried, "So that sounds kind of frightening. Is it?"

Mike Shuster (no investigative journalist himself) again and again emphasized the utterly hypothetical nature of this uranium ever being highly enriched. But Inskeep was undeterred; he asked, "So should the rest of the world be concerned....[and] how concerned should President-elect Obama be about a problem that he's going to inherit?"

Holy crap, if Inskeep really wants to scare himself silly he could lay awake nights and think about all that potential nuclear bomb material just hiding under the soil of Iran which someday, perhaps in the future, if the decision is made, just might possibly somehow get turned into not one but dozens of nuclear bombs....Seems like somebody wants to get his war on.

Radio+active

(source of graphic)

Yes, kids, if you had your handy Family Radiation Measurement Kit set up next to next to the radio Friday evening you would have realized that you'd been exposed to more lethal radiation than these dummies at a test site (great source!).

Though it's no news that there is a real risk of non-state terrorists eventually setting off a nuclear device in the US (e.g. Chomsky has repeatedly commented on this issue and the Union of Concerned Scientists has noted this problem, too). So, you might ask yourself why, just as the presidential election election race is heating up, does NPR decide to dedicate a story focused on the "possibility of a single relatively primitive bomb set off by terrorists in a U.S. city that could potential kill hundreds of thousands of people"? David Kestenbaum tells us:

"....the Cold War is over. No one worries about thousands of megaton bombs wiping out the country. No, the concern now is a single much smaller bomb, like the one dropped on Hiroshima. Til Jolly with the Department of Heimat Homeland Security set the tone: 'there are those who would like to do this to us. Is it likely? I don't know'..."

Actually, NPR could have done quite an interesting program on the nuclear threat, including the fact that though the Cold War is over, there is still a grave threat from an accidental exchange as nearly happened in January of 1995. Regarding non-state terrorism and nuclear weapons, they might have looked at how nuclear non-proliferation is a key to reducing the chance for such an event, and how recent US policy is going away from non-proliferation and has undermined the NPT. Another key would be making US foreign policy less violent and aggressive, thereby reducing the conditions that encourage the growth of terrorist tactics and ideologies - something the Bush administration has been exceptionally inept at.

Could have, might have...instead NPR chose to do a simple FEAR! report: "There coming!" "They'll set off a nuclear weapon!" "Oh My God!" "Hundreds of thousands dead!" "The White House vaporized." The hell with FISA! Who needs habeus corpus? No time for inexperience. What we need is a Strong Leader, any suggestions?

An Existential Crisis

When NPR hunts down two "experts" to talk about nuclear proliferation, you'd better have your seatbelt on. This Sunday morning the talk is of India, Pakistan, and Iran. Of course the main nuclear outlaw in the Middle East is conveniently not included (until the talk gets around to attacking Iran). Auntie Liane chats with George Perkovich and Michael Krepon, two heavyweights in the intellectual world - both have written reams of books and articles. Seriously, the two seem pretty dang smart, so why, when the talk gets to Iran, do they say such things as:

Perkovich:

"Iran feels fairly ascendant...and so they're always willing in principal to negotiate if it's to accept your surrender, but if it's on the terms that the US and others would seek which is 'Hey, hey Iran, here's what you need to do,' they're not interested."

"Accept your surrender"?! Does either Hansen or Krepon interject to say, "Whoa, wait a minute; the US position on negotiation with Iran is that to talk Iran must capitulate on the core issue of uranium enrichment. Isn't that a surrender and then we'll talk position?" Do either of them even ask politely, "Could you give one example of Iran asking for surrender?" But wait, Perkovich isn't done; he continues:

"The Iranians pretty much quit negotiating in the summer of 2005...have taken the position of we're going to do what we want and you can't stop us. So it would be kind of a breakthrough if actually they decided yes, we're prepared to negotiate...."

and

"I think Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has testified...Iran fundamentally is deterrable. The problem is that Israel isn't as convinced of that - and has reason not to be so convinced - so one thought is the Israelis might come to a crucial existential decision which says, well you can't just sit here and let them do that, so military action may not be perfect, may not solve the problem, but it's better than doing nothing."

Existential? You have to wonder about these kind of buzz words, especially when they originate out of the White House; and you have to question the integrity of a scholar who is simply willing to pick up such language and run with it. Again, neither of the other participants in this otherworldly exchange suggest that actually Iran may be undergoing a bit of an existential threat when it considers what's "on the table": the US blessings of liberty bestowed on Iraq and Israel's gentle interventions in Lebanon in '82 and '06 (not to mention Israel's arsenal of peaceful nuclear weapons).

Oddly, both speakers eventually indicate that they think the military option and the threat to use it is not such a great idea. However, that gets buried under the bulk of their discussion which demonizes Iran and makes the case for justifying a US/Israel military option.

A Grain of Salt with my Prime Rib Please

Any half-witted reader knows that it is the nature of governments to lie, and then to lie some more, and finally to lie again. People of all ilks have pointed out Goebbels' pointed remarks about the power of the big lie (ironic link warning!). Of course, the US is as guilty as any promoting lies that have dire consequences: from Vietnam and El Salvador to secret prisons and torture. The Bush administration, however, has taken this tendency and turned it in to a stock in trade.

So you might expect any thinking person, and especially a journalist, to be extremely skeptical about the latest Bush Administration presentation of "intelligence" on the Syrian facility destroyed by Israel back in September. You might expect it, but not NPR. To serve up this latest dish from the White House, NPR turns to Tom Gjelten. Here's just a sample of his hard-hitting skepticism evidenced on Thursday's ATC :

• "...the amazing thing Melissa is that they have photos...that were taken inside the reactor by somebody, a spy presumably..."
• "...photos show definitively that what was being built there was in fact a nuclear reactor."
• "...however they did have a very interesting picture of a senior North Korean official..."
• "...they also said that they could support all of these pictures and the conclusions they drew from them with other evidence."

I'm not claiming to know whether or not Syria was building a nuclear reactor or not. The silly video that the Bush folks produced makes a dumbed-down case, but are the photos real, current, actually from the bombed site, etc? NPR doesn't express a hint of doubt, but, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, joins the rest of the mainstream media in just repeating whatever the administration claims. For a bit of salt on this juicy story you can read the Greenwald piece, take a look at Larisa Alexandrovna on Huffington Post, David Kurtz on TPM, or Steve Benen on Carpetbagger Report. Or you can just sit at the counter with NPR and gobble it up - yum.

Update (4/27): Juan Cole (through an informed reader) pokes more holes in the US/Israel case against Syria. In his post he also recommends this Farley article in Counterpunch (which spanks Gjelten and National "Pentagon" Radio).

Oh My God, As Little as a Year...

As the fallout from the NIE report on Iran's lack of a nuclear bomb program as of 2003 dominates the headlines (and don't even look for the virtually unreported details of Iran's nearly complete cooperation with the IAEA), NPR bends over backward this morning to stoke the fires of FEAR. Here's the blow by blow of this little neocon remix from NPR's science reporter, Christopher Joyce.

• Montagne: "Iranian engineers continue to make uranium fuel....Experts point out that enriching uranium for fuel leaves a big part of the weapons apparatus intact."
• Joyce: "You make fuel for a nuclear power plant or material for a bomb the same way."
• Joyce: "...even if Iran has in fact stopped designing a weapon, the enrichment process is really the biggest single step toward making one."
• Pierre Goldschmidt (being interviewed): "And clearly Iran is still working and making progress on nuclear material production and on delivery systems with their ballistic missiles."
• Joyce citing Goldschmidt: "He says there's no evidence that Iran has abandoned efforts to get that capability [nuclear weapons capability] and President George Bush noted in his press conference..."
• Joyce (wrapping up the story): "could take Iranian scientists as little as a year to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb."

What are we waiting for? Let's load up the bunker busters and stop them while there's still time!

Rogue Nations, Rogue Reporters

This from a reader was in my inbox today:

This morning at about 8:10, one of the NPR regulars interviewed a NYTimes reporter about how the illegal US nuclear deal might not pass muster in the Indian parliament.

Nowhere did either reporter discuss that the Bush Admin's deal is illegal under the US constitution (as it violates the NPT, which is the Law Of The Land). Indeed, they very carefully skirted around the NPT issue, at one point saying that the deal angers 'some' non-proliferationists. No, it angers MOST NPT supporters and is seen as a way for Bush to undermine the Rule of Law and encourage more illegal nuclear technology transactions outside of the NPT and IAEA framework.

The most dishonest report on this issue outside of Faux Noose.

Indeed, if you can stand hearing it the report is here. My favorite moment comes when Somini Sengupta, South Asia Bureau Chief for The New York Times, says that if India scraps the deal, it "would certainly rob the Bush administration of a significant foreign policy legacy." So now demolishing nonproliferation international law is "a significant foreign policy legacy"! Amazing.

For information on the story you might skip this nonsense from NPR and look at this recent piece by Noam Chomsky or this Arms Control Association site.

And the Follow Up Question Is? or How I Learned to Love the Bomb

Credit to Robert Siegel in his interview with Sallai Meridor, Israel's new ambassador to the United States, for at least mentioning the issue of Israel's nukes:

Siegel: "Of course, the Iranians say, you may not own up to it publicly, but everyone knows you have nuclear weapons in Israel, what's different for them?"

To which Meridor answers: "Well, this is a clear propaganda campaign by the Iranian. Israel has a very clear policy, responsible with regard to this matter. The Iranians want to probably take the focus from where is. The issue is very clear: If Iran had nuclear bomb and nuclear military capacity, it would be a mortal threat to the world, and the world should get their act together to stop it now."

That's it! Siegel just lets that evasion hang there and closes the interview. It's enough to make you want to pull out your hair. How about probing that "clear policy" that is so "responsible." And notice the way Siegel puts the question out there, "Of course, the Iranians say..." Well, Robert, no, not just the Iranians, but Americans like myself who are informed and skeptical want to know why an aggressor nation like Israel should have nukes and why the US has helped Israel keep this dirty secret for so long. Lastly, I love the way Siegel says, "everyone knows you have nuclear weapons in Israel." Really? They sure haven't learned about them from NPR news!

From the Playbook

Stripped of political and historical context, Linda Gradstein presents the truncated logic for war on Iran on Tuesday's Morning Edition.

• Gradstein: "...most Israeli analysts believe it's only a matter of time until Iran has the capability of making a nuclear bomb."
• Dani Yatom (former member of the Mossad and current member of Israel's parliament) : "...vital for Israel to convince the free world, led by the United States...not to exclude any military operation against Iran."
• General Zvi Shtauber (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies ): "...sooner or later - we are not yet at this junction - there will be a question of using military means."
• Gradstein quoting Uzi Dayan (Former Israeli national security adviser): "...if Israel doesn't stop Iran in the next year, it may be too late."
• Uzi Dayan: "The only way to prevent Iran later from achieving this capability will be by using military or even a non-conventional force." (What "non-conventional force" means is not explained.)
• Dani Yatom: "it [militarily destroying Iran's nuclear capability] will be much more difficult. But still it is achievable."

At the end of this report I felt like I had been in the football huddle for Team Israel with each player chiming in and quarterback Gradstein making sure we all knew what the next play was: the option play...military option that is (it worked so well against Iraq and Lebanon after all).

Down...set...hike!

Nukes and Newborns

Senior NPR analyst Dan Schorr was on a roll today. Summing up the past year he offers, "I think one can say about the year 2006, it was the year when the era of non-proliferation ended. All these years the United States, in company with others, has been trying very hard to hold the line, no more, no more…that era is over." Dan might want to get on the phone and try to talk to Mordechai Vanunu, he might have a slightly different idea of when non-proliferation ended. (But to do that would break the NPR taboo of ever holding Israel to account for its rogue-state behavior. Or perhaps Schorr considers the US plans for mini-nukes to be part of "holding the line."

From this nonsense Schorr jumps on the "Birth Pangs" wagon of Middle East analysis. Here's his razor sharp insights regarding the spread of Islamist movements: "We have this kind of revolution of the Islamists which are trying to introduce Koran all over the world and everywhere and to some extent they are at least successful in killing infant democracy..." Whoaa Dan! Killing infant democracy? Oh yea, like the little baby in Lebanon that the US and Israel tried to nurse with a million cluster bomblets this past summer!