Lightning
I saw a real Subhan Allah 
moment in these pictures.
Archive for November, 2007
Guantanamo document confirms psychological torture - Wikileaks
Wikileaks has obtained a copy of the Guantánamo manual for the personnel at the base. Apparently some of the inmates were completely denied any access to the Red Cross, which is a violation of international law. Also, it lays out detailed methods of psychological torture etc. Like Thomas Friedman said, it’s an “anti-Statue of Liberty” that is causing much more harm than any possible good to America.
Bangladesh on the Brink
Current TV did a special:
Bangladesh on the Brink
Did you know that it’s so crowded, it would be like if half of Americans were all living in a country the size of Iowa? Also, global warming is hurting Bangladesh more than America at the moment.
Protecting Hospitals in Iraq
Alive in Baghdad has a video report:
Field Report - Protecting Hospitals in Iraq
It genuinely bothers me that people would be sick-minded enough to attack hospitals, which has happened in the past in Kirkuk and Mosul. (That doesn’t let the US soldiers off the hook for deliberately attacking an Iraqi hospital in Fallujah either.)
As an EMT, pharmacy worker, and aspiring doctor, few things upset me more than those who deliberately target healthcare workers; doctors, nurses, ambulance personnel etc. Every so often, I’d look at the Palestinian Red Crescent website and see reports of attacks against PRCS members by Israeli soldiers; drivers and patients shot, delays at checkpoints killing patients, and mistreatment of workers (the website used to have photos). It’s just cruel. There have also been attacks on Israeli ambulances (which is just as reprehensible), but I can’t find nearly as many incidents.
If you want to read and hear more about the brave doctors and the risks they take worldwide, visit Doctors Without Borders
Iraqis Celebrate Winning the 2007 Asia Cup
Alive in Baghdad has a video blog in Iraq.
One bit of good news, however brief. Field Report - Iraqis Celebrate Winning the 2007 Asia Cup, baghdad
Al Hurra
Al Hurra is a relatively new 24-hour Television news channel in Arabic. It is funded by the US government in an attempt to broadcast Pro-American news into the Middle East.
As of right now, the Arab world in general is angry at the US. The reasons are due to the fact that the majority of Arabs feel the US is unfairly biased towards Israel, the US invaded Iraq, US leaders and officials insulted their dominant religion; Islam, and that the US does not understand or listen to Arabs. Those are increasingly popular sentiments throughout the region, but not the topic of this post. It is important to mention them however, because they are the reason for this channel.
The US attempts to gain public support in foreign countries by getting its message to the people. Since 1942, the Voice of America would broadcast over radio, into friendly and enemy countries. It would tell the news, play some music, give pro-American and pro-Freedom speeches, and generally try to win people over to the American point of view. It was supposed to tell the truth about American and world news in locations that may or may not have access to other news sources. However, this service is over radio, and many people get their news nowadays from television.
The US State Department previously tried to improve US relations with the Arab world after 2001 by publishing “Hi” magazine, which was basically a $12 Million flop. It steered clear of controversial issues and tried to describe itself as a “lifestyle magazine” which was designed to promote American values. It was described as a “pro-American Reader’s Digest” with celebrity interviews, music reviews, and descriptions of American lifestyle. Critics said that the magazine was addressing “the wrong problem,” since the magazine was calculated to show the younger generation what America was really like in the hope that it would make them sympathetic. “The problem with young Arabs is not how they perceive U.S. culture or the American way of life,” says Mohammed Nawawy, an Egyptian-born journalism professor at Stonehill College in Massachusetts and co-author of a book on the Al-jazeera TV network. “They’re watching American movies and wearing American jeans and lining up to get visas to come to the United States. The problem is how they perceive United States foreign policy, and that can only be changed by actions on the ground in Iraq and Israel,” he added. The magazine shut down in 2005 when the State Department pulled the plug.
The government then tried a different tack in 2002, launching a new radio service called Radio Sawa, aimed at younger Arabic and Spanish speaking youth. The service broadcast some American music and pro-American news (supposed to counter the criticism of America in other local news). So far, it’s been considered another flop or weak service, as people are said to listen to the music and turn the “propaganda” off when that segment airs.
With already two strikes under its belt (Radio Sawa and Hi magazine), the US administration decided they should try again, this time with a much more popular and engaging medium, television. (Hey, it worked on Americans with their conservative Fox News Channel and footage of the President on an aircraft carrier.)
Before describing the station, some background information on the Arabic television world is in order. There are already 150+ channels on Arabic television to begin with. Every state in the Middle East region has its own State-run news service. Bias is present as the services are obviously biased toward the government controlling it, as well as censorship when the government blacks out stories that are unfavorable towards it. Al Jazeera entered the spotlight as a more independant news source, showing a secular 24-hour news channel all in Arabic with original reporting. It quickly became a hit, with over 55 million viewers. People trusted their journalism over the partisan views of the State-broadcast television stations. Al Jazeera reported on stories that other services couldn’t or wouldn’t touch, with journalism critical of governments and the corruption present. It managed to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where few others could. While CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the BBC covered the war on the side of the US and British forces, Al Jazeera managed to air live footage of civillian casualties and air strikes. Al Arabiya television also became a hit among Arab viewers, though is less known in America.
Despite the fact that the US Administration feels its war in Iraq and Afghanistan were partly for “Humanitarian reasons,” it has made the population of the Arab world enraged. Daily newspapers and editorials and television programs blast the US for its poor and hypocritical foreign policy, criticizing its wars and its unconditional support for Israel in every conflict. The US Administration is not stupid, they realize that this attitude can only foment more terrorism against the US; it is certainly not helping the fight in Iraq. The US State Department’s Margaret D. Tutwiler, the official in charge of public diplomacy, acknowledged that America’s standing abroad had deteriorated to such an extent that “it will take us many years of hard, focused work” to restore it.
Why does the current US administration see as the source of this problem? “They hate us out of ignorance,” is a common thought bandied about. Currently, the communications strategies like this station are being developed on the assumption that if “they” just knew how good “we” are and how much we love “freedom,” then they will support the US and its “war on terrorism.” Of course, scores of experts all agree that the US policy is the real culprit. The sentiment at the moment is “It’s hard to convince anyone of the US’ commitment when you have photos of naked Iraqis being tortured by Americans.” “The United States lost the public relations war in the Muslim world a long time ago,” says Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News. “They could have the Prophet Muhammad 
doing public relations and it wouldn’t help.”
The White House has accused Arab media, namely Al Jazeera, of deliberately trying to provoke anti-Americanism sentiments. They have protested on numerous occasions, and have even destroyed 2 bureaus since 2001 with missile attacks. (One was purportedly and debatably an accident) Al Jazeera aired several of the videotapes from Osama Bin Laden on its networks, which caused the US to condemn the channel. Bush had even planned on bombing Al Jazeera’s main station in 2004, until Tiny Blair talked him out of it.
Al Hurra (which means “The Free One” in Arabic) was created, as President Bush said in his State of the Union 2004 address, “to cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda.” Bush also said the channel would join other U.S. government broadcasts that are aimed at cutting through the “hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world” and telling people “the truth about the values and the policies of the United States.” The US government has given a $62 Million US budget to create a new Pro-America television station and run it for its first year. It will broadcast “objective, balanced news” which makes many cringe, as it sounds like an effort to give “fair and balanced” (yet slanted) Fox News to the Middle East. One wonders how it’s possible to be both “objective” and “Pro-American” at the same time sometimes.
Even before opening, the channel already faced skepticism from Middle East Experts, Arabs, and Middle Easterners themselves. A minority in the region trust President Bush today, they may not bother with an American-controlled television channel. Previous pro-American ads paid for by the US government were a flop. Most of the people in the region have learned to become skeptical of state-run media, as it hides stories and downplays others. This could probably be no different, some Arabs already see it as propaganda. Most Arabs do not trust the state-run television news, and have no reason to trust the American-run news any more than the others in their lot. Al Hurra hopes to combat that issue by having “the highest production values in the region.” They plan to distinguish themselves through their journalistic approach. According to a channel official, Al Jazeera tends to point out that the Israelis were flying “American-made” aircraft, while Al Hurra will not do that.
Al Hurra officials claimed that they will not pull their punches when they talk about the United States. One official said the channel might feature a translated version of the BBC documentary “Blair’s War,” which extensively broadcast the views of critics of the Iraq war. Like the Voice of America, they ultimately answer to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an appointed body of four Democrats and four Republicans plus the US Secretary of State.
In 2004, the LA Times reported on another US-backed (and Pentagon-funded) group, the Iraqi Media Network, and its broadcast channel Al Iraqiyah. According to the Journalist Edmund Sanders, hopes “have dimmed, despite spending nearly $200 million on two Pentagon contractors hired to launch the media company.” The contract was recently transferred from San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. to Florida equipment maker Harris Corp. The article continued, “The station has suffered from management turnover and poor ratings. Some U.S. and Iraqi advisors left, complaining that coalition officials tried to use the station as a public-relations vehicle.”
Al Hurra broadcasts from Springfield, Virginia and has a Lebanese-born director. It has a staff of 200, with many Arabs on staff. 310 Million Arabs in 22 Arab countries will be able to watch the Satellite channel, but it will take some months to determine the ratings. The channel began broadcasting on February 14, 2004. It typically advertises itself with the silhouette of an Arabian horse.
They have an array of programs ready - including top-of-the-hour news broadcasts and talk-show formats.”Free Hour” is patterned after Nightline and Larry King Live. Last week, for example, one program examined the US-Libyan relationship and what caused Col. Mohammar Qaddafi to dismantle his weapons program; another looked into whether Al Qaeda has spread into Iraq. Weekend talk shows run on Fridays (the Arab equivalent of American Sundays) and are patterned after NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s Face the Nation.
Reactions to the Station
Al Jazeera officials took issue with Al Hurra’s criticism and said Arab viewers would see the network for what it was, a tool of the American government. “His mandate is clear — that’s to promote American points of view,” said Jihad Ali Ballout, a Jazeera spokesman. “We are two different beasts altogether: Al Jazeera’s job is not to promote anybody’s point of view.” Another person said quite simply, “America is judged not on what she says but what she does.”
UK newspaper The Guardian writes that “Al Hurra’s debut passed without notice in some quarters: most Egyptians cannot afford a satellite dish.” It also noted in its report, “few people in downtown Cairo confessed to tuning in for the inaugural broadcast. Opinions, however, were plentiful. ‘You mean the American propaganda channel?’ proved the most popular response.”
Riverbend, a popular Iraqi blogger who posts from Baghdad, had this to say about the network:
I wish everyone could see Al-Hurra- the new ‘unbiased’ news network started by the Pentagon and currently being broadcast all over the Arab world. It is the visual equivalent of Sawa- the American radio station which was previously the Voice of America. The news and reports are so completely biased, they only lack George Bush and Condi Rice as anchors. We watch the reports and news briefs and snicker… it is far from subtle. Interestingly enough, Asa’ad Abu Khalil said that Sawa and Al-Hurra are banned inside of America due to some sort of law that doesn’t allow the broadcast of blatant political propaganda or something to that effect. I’d love to know more about that.A channel like Al-Hurra may be able to convince Egyptians, for example, that everything is going great inside of Iraq, but how are you supposed to convince Iraqis of that? Just because they broadcast it hourly, it doesn’t make it true. I sometimes wonder how Americans would feel if the Saudi government, for example, suddenly decided to start broadcasting an English channel with Islamic propaganda to Americans….
I know it bothers the Interim Iraqi Government (CPA) terribly to have the corpses of dead Iraqis shown on television. They would love for Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia to follow Al-Hurra’s example and show endless interviews with pro-occupation Iraqis living abroad and speaking in stilted Arabic. These interviews, of course, are interspersed with translated documentaries on the many marvels of… Hollywood. And while I, personally, am very interested in the custom leather interiors of the latest Audi, I couldn’t seem to draw myself away from Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia while 700+ Iraqis were being killed.
So far, other Iraqis seem to hate the channel as well, as evidenced by Iraqi officials arguing with the Al Hurra commentators over Iraq while on the air.
Hassan Al-Naser, a 22-year-old Saudi university student, said Al Hurra is the last place he would turn for information. “I haven’t watched it and I don’t care what they show. We all know the main aim behind this channel is to polish the image of the United States in the region… If the US policy in the region were acceptable, they would not have to improve their image in this way. The US government has been a great supporter of Israel, which killed thousands of Palestinians, and is now occupying Iraq — most people in the region won’t forget that.” Somehow, I believe that his viewpoint is popular.
Those who do watch the channel are unconvinced. Hamid Al-Twairqi, a 37-year-old Saudi teacher, has been watching the new network regularly. He said Al Hurra has not been fair in covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “They have not been fair in showing how the Israeli soldiers destroy the houses of Palestinians and the killing of innocent children and women. So far, they have no credibility in the region and people still turn to Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya to get the facts,” he added. He told the newspaper that most of his friends feel Al Hurra is short on credibility and long on arrogance.
Muhammad Al-Samman does not believe Al Hurra will be able to change the attitude of the Arabs toward the US. “I think their attempt to influence Arab public opinion in favor of the US will fail because people are fed up with what they see as the worst-ever American policy in the region,” he said, adding that the best way to change perceptions in the region would be for the US to change its policy.
One newspaper editorialized thus:
The fate of Al-Hurra will be that of the Israeli channel Al-Maqboura [the Arabic-language satellite TV station launched by the Israeli government in 2001] and most of the government-owned Arab channels: It will create jobs for government employees. The public reaction and the ratings are a different matter.
Al Hurra provides less than an hour of hard news per day, and is widely ridiculed in Iraq as the gardening channel because of the pablum in which it specializes. Even when it does news, it can’t be very effective. Juan Cole saw a program list recently, “it started off with an interview with Elie Wiesel about how he can’t support the Palestinian cause because Palestinians engage in violence. At a time when the US siege of Fallujah was fresh in everyone’s minds, this must have struck Arab viewers as the crock of steaming excrement that it is. And if that is the lead segment on the US-provided 45 minutes of news, then the US may as well not bother.” Only 6% of Iraqi viewers watch Al Hurra anyway, according to one poll.
“It is just like everything America does, they say every other Arab station is wrong and they the US are right,” commented one Yemeni. Lately the channel has been showing lots of documentaries, some in English with Arabic subtitles (bad idea because many people are illiterate). Al Hurra seems to be losing as it’s more and more obvious that their news coverage is slanted. When Ayman Al-Zawahiri released an audiotape message, Al Jazeera played it, while Al Hurra only briefly mentioned that it existed without analysis or discussion of it, making virtually everyone change the channel. “That’s it,” one former fan said. “It is just one more state-run news agency, and we already have plenty of official news.” According to one reporter, few tuned to Al Hurra for coverage of Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, nor to coverage of the Pakistani Army’s fierce battle with Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, because by that point, people had already become fed up with the bias.
It appears that Al Hurra is a sunk venture. The US siege of Fallujah, where Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya showed video of bombing, bloodied women and children, and decapitated corpses of women on the street, as well as the soccer stadium with hundreds of graves, was given poor coverage on Al Hurra. Iraqis and many other Arabs changed the channel; Al Hurra was either whitewashing or ignoring the lurid scene. As one Lebanese-American editor in Washington noted: “The training wheels came off when Alhurra carried cooking and fashion shows during live coverage by Al Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and others of violence in Fallujah and during the Israeli assault on Rafah. It’s ridiculous, and Alhurra was not being taken seriously during a recent visit I made to the region. There’s nothing worse than not being taken seriously when you are a journalist.” The real nail in the coffin seemed to be when the photos of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal hit the press; Al Hurra paid it little heed and didn’t even show it, waiting days until the Sunday show to air a debate on it. George W. Bush was interviewed on the station, but many didn’t bother to watch, the US’ credibility was already in tatters by then. Margaret D. Tutwiler, former US ambassador assigned to become undersecretary of state for public affairs, quit in disgust after only four months on the job, saying it was impossible to compete with Al Jazeera’s and Al-Arabiya’s coverage of Iraq. She is the third to do so for that position.
I asked a Lebanese Arab professor from Notre Dame what his impressions of the channel were. He basically agreed that it was doing a lousy job, and related the following anecdote. On one of the discussion shows, a question was put to someone on the American side, asking what is the purpose of having so many American troops in Iraq if so many are getting killed? The response was that the roads in America are dangerous, and the risk of dying is high. Therefore, less Americans would die if they were operating in Iraq than if they were home and on America’s highways. His conclusion was that Al Hurra was a faling effort composed of apologists.
The year-old Al Hurra draws similar complaints from the Arab press. Arab journalists say it employs too many Lebanese nationals (not much of a surprise given that it is staffed by Lebanese-American journalists) and foolishly sticks to a regular schedule of nature documentaries and cooking shows, even during important events like the 2004 Tsunami and the killing of the head of Hamas. Six months after the station’s launch, Tariq Al Humayd, the editor of the pan-Arab paper Asharq al-Awsat, which has shown more sympathy to America’s presence in the region than others, lamented Al Hurra’s sorry state: “We hoped that Al Hurra would emerge as the voice of reason and a source of information and investigative reports at the level of those produced by the U.S. media. The last thing we expected was that the United States would try to sell us its bad goods.” Mamoun Fandy argues that Al Hurra undercuts America’s proclaimed hopes for the Middle East by failing to promote free speech and women’s rights. Some of the channel’s detractors like to call it Al Hurayrah (”the kitten”), which is a near-homonym.
Its anemic English web site can be found at: http://www.alhurra.com/
It is currently being broadcast through Arabsat Digital, Arabsat C-band analog, and Nilesat digital. As of this writing, I cannot locate it on any International satellite television packages viewable in the US. Guess you have to be there.
In September 2006, a ratings study showed A Hurra at 56th place out of 100 channels, putting it ahead of CNN at 83rd place but far, far behind Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. It also ran ahead of the Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet, which ranked 79th.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/middleeast/17NETW.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/whitehouse/la-fg-bush5feb05,1,7146046.story?coll=la-news-politics-white_house
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0224/p01s04-usfp.html
http://riverbend.blogspot.com
http://arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=40728&d=7&m=3&y=2004&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Middle_East_Television_Network
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-08/09/article02.shtml
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/March/11%20o/No%20Hurras%20For%20Al-Hurra%20By%20Amir%20Butler.htm (Not the real Al Jazeera TV station)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040506-085117-7996r.htm
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q4/rendon.html
http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108969358993662374
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/3/peinVOA.asp
Office of Strategic Influence
In late 2001, the US government realized that it was rapidly losing international support for its war on terrorism, particularly support in Islamic countries.
The US State Department, a civilian agency, typically had the role of public diplomacy and general international PR for the United States. However, on February 19, 2002, the New York Times reported that a small but well-funded new office in the Pentagon had been created shortly after September 11, 2001, called the Office of Strategic Influence. They reported that “The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries,” according to their military officials. “As part of the effort to counter the statements of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and their supporters, the State Department has already hired a former advertising executive to run its public diplomacy office, and the White House has created a public information “war room” to coordinate the administration’s daily message domestically and abroad.”
Various plans have emerged from this office, including planting news items with foreign media organizations and sending journalists, foreign and civic leaders e-mail messages that promote American views and/or criticize unfriendly governments. This would all appear to be from somewhere other than the government, like a .com instead of a .gov or .mil.
To help the new office, they hired the Rendon Group, run by a former aide to Jimmy Carter, paying them $100,000 a month for their work. The Pentagon hired them under a no-bid contract, as they were already experienced in overseas propaganda. The group claims to specialize in “assisting corporations, organizations, and governments achieve their policy objectives,” and their past clients include the CIA, USAID, the Kuwaiti government, Monsanto Chemical Company, and the official trade agencies of countries including Bulgaria, Russia, and Uzbekistan, and the Iraqi National Congress (an exile group bent on ousting Saddam Hussein and headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a controversial guy who appears to have been playing both the US and Iran in an effort to trigger the war and become Iraq’s next president). ABC reports that Rendon came up with the name for the INC itself. Their website brags that they have done business in more than 78 countries. Whatever they are doing is classified, however. The group is also well known for their past work, running propaganda campaigns in Arab countries, including one that denounced atrocities by Iraq during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait as well as creating public support for Operation Desert Storm, for which the Kuwaiti government paid $100,000 per month. John Rendon himself once confessed in a speech at the National Security Conference:
“If any of you either participated in the liberation of Kuwait City [after the first Gulf War]… or if you watched it on television, you would have seen hundreds of Kuwaitis waving small American flags, did you ever stop to wonder how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American flags? And for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries? Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs.”
This isn’t new. There used to be an Office of Strategic Services which existed for several years until it was absorbed by the CIA. By law, the Pentagon and the CIA are barred from propaganda activities in the US, they can only work outside its borders. In the mid-1970’s, it was disclosed that some CIA programs to plant false information in the foreign press had spilled over, resulting in articles published by the American media. Also, the US military airdropped leaflets in Iraq and Afghanistan to try and convince the public. CNN’s translators said they heard shortwave radio messages, giving suggestions to one-time Taliban supporters that it was hopeless to continue fighting, and also giving explicit instructions on how to surrender. The Wall Street Journal attributes that to the “4th Psychological Operations (Psyops) group” which designed the leaflets and radio broadcasts in Afghanistan “to persuade enemy fighters to quit, and to convince civilians that U.S. bombs raining down on their country will result in a better future for their families.” (their words, not mine)
This office, however is different from the Voice of America or the Radio Marti broadcasts in Cuba, which have been more objective. The mission of the OSI is to manipulate public opinion in other countries that will win their support of the US and its “war on terrorism.” The manipulation is at the core of the mission; the OSI intends to feed “disinformation” into the global population in ways that will lead the people of the world to obey and support America. “Disinformation” is a nice word for “falsehoods,” and when the government does it officially, the dictionary word is “propaganda.”
This Office has had many critics. There was some fallout from the Times’ announcement of its existence. It definitely undermined the US administration’s credibility, accusing it of hiring Joseph Goebbels to work for them. Disinformation planted in Reuters or AFP could make its way into American news, like the 2003 coup d’etat in Venezuela that failed, but was initially reported to have succeeded. Governments in other countries are upset over an effort like this, particularly ones that support the US. It was just profoundly undemocratic.
By fallout, I meant there was outrage. CNN picked up on the story, as did many other news organizations worldwide. People once again compared it to a Ministry of Truth in 1984-esque times. One blogger termed it “tactical lying.” Within a week of the story breaking, the Pentagon closed down the Office, despite the fact that it was open and running for months, using money earmarked as “emergency funds” after September 11, 2001. The Pentagon told the Associated Press that all the negative publicity damaged the Office’s reputation so badly “that it could not operate effectively.” Days later, Donald Rumsfeld tried to distance himself from the organization, claiming that he had “never even seen the charter for the office.” The New York Times then reported that Thomas Timmes, the OSI’s assistant for operations, said that Rumsfeld had been briefed on its goals “at least twice” and had “given his general support” (New York Times, 2/25/02).
A few months later, after the whole thing blew over, Rumsfeld seems to have felt safe enough to own up in a Press Conference that the work of the OSI didn’t end:
“And then there was the Office of Strategic Influence. You may recall that. And ‘oh my goodness gracious isn’t that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall.’ I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I’ll give you the corpse. There’s the name. You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.”
As Rumsfeld himself all but admitted, nobody got fired; the description of what they did simply changed slightly. The office itself was located adjacent to the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon, the office that managed the Iraq war buildup and postwar scenarios (and botched it up by many accounts). The Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, a neoconservative HQ staffed with Richard Perle, Gingrich, Woolsey, et al., was located one floor directly below the OSI. This could mean something.
In October, 2003, a number of identical letters appeared in scattered local newspapers supporting the war on Iraq, with signatures of different soldiers. When the newspapers called these soldiers back, they claimed they had never signed the letters. The letters turned out to be identical fakes, an apparent attempt to show some sort of grassroots support for the war. Accusations have been made that the Bush administration perpetrated the act, or perhaps some part of the OSI.
In a slightly more blatant vein, the Office of Strategic Communication, also known as “Stratcom” made the news, or should I say “makes” the news. An April 4, 2004 Associated press report described the US-Led coalition’s press office, where “Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans promoting mostly good news about Iraq. Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, now the Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staff members. A third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties, running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of George W. Bush’s re-election effort. …” one of Stratcom’s main goals “is to ensure Americans see the positive side of the Bush administration’s invasion, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, where 600 Americans have died already and a deadly insurgency thrives. ‘Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin,’ one news release in late March said in its headline. Another statement cautioned ‘The Reality Is Nothing Like What You See on Television.’” They also have ties to the US-funded Al Hurra and Al-Iraqiyah television stations.
Also, in January 2003, George W. Bush used his executive power to create an “Office of Global Communications” which, in his words, “disseminating truthful, accurate, and effective messages about the United States, its Government and policies, and the American people and culture.” Whether this office is tied into the above efforts is unclear to me at this time.
Sources:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/fr/631175/posts
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/osi-followup.html
http://www.dod.gov/news/Nov2002/t11212002_t1118sd2.html
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/02/19/gen.strategic.influence/
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/02/dod022602.html
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16754
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3940735,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1830500.stm
http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2004_05_23.html#001558
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q4/rendon.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030121-3.html
Surah Al-Mutaffin: Tafseer
I have tremendous respect for Brother Nouman Ali Khan. I moved to New York city, and he moved to another part of Long Island, and I miss him. In 2003 he became acting Imam for Masjid Darul Quran and taught the sunday school and led the preschool. I was captivated by his khutbahs (khutab?) and remember them as some of the most iman-raising. He also did weekly halaqas after isha, going over a surah in incredible depth and drawing in multiple commentaries and real-world examples, masha Allah . During the masjid fair, they would sell CDs of it as a fundraiser. I got his permission to copy them, so I will post one below, the first of a bunch, insha’Allah .
Surah 83 - Al Mutaffifin MP3 (75MB, 1+ hr in length)
Story of the Wise King
Lemme tell you a story. Once there was a wise king who ruled over a kingdom. One day, a witch comes and poisons the town well. The whole town drinks it and goes crazy, except the king, who had his own well. So the townsfolk all begin to riot, all of them saying the king has gone mad and demanding he should be overthrown. Finally, after the whole town joins in, the king relents and goes to the well and drinks from it. The next day, the town cheers, as they all celebrate how the king finally got his sanity back.
