NPR lets right-wing spit on Zinn's grave

http://www.fair.org

Action Alert

NPR Finds Right-Wing Crank to Spit on Zinn's Grave
David Horowitz in ATC obituary with substance-free attack

1/29/10

When progressive historian Howard Zinn died on January 27, NPR's All Things Considered (1/28/10) marked his passing with something you don't often see in an obituary: a rebuttal.

After quoting Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond, NPR's Allison Keyes turned to far-right activist David Horowitz to symbolically spit on Zinn's grave. "There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect," Horowitz declared. "Zinn represents a fringe mentality which has unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time. So he did certainly alter the consciousness of millions of younger people for the worse."

Horowitz's substance-free attack contributed nothing to an understanding of Zinn's life or work, other than conveying that he's disliked by cranky right-wingers. (Horowitz has been best known in recent years for his race-baiting and Muslim-bashing--Extra!, 5-6/02; FAIR report, 10/1/08.) He seems to have been included merely to demonstrate that NPR will not allow praise for a leftist to go unaccompanied by conservative contempt.

Needless to say, it is not the case that NPR has a consistent principle that all its obituaries be thus "balanced." Take its coverage of the death of William F. Buckley, a figure as admired by the right as much as Zinn was on the left. Upon his death in February 2008, NPR aired six segments commemorating him, none of which included a non-admiring guest. In two segments, All Things Considered (2/27/08) presented the remembrances of Rich Lowry (Buckley's successor at National Review), his son Christopher and his biographer Sam Tanenhaus.

One of the All Things Considered segments did include a soundbite of Noam Chomsky debating with Buckley: "No, I don't believe that.... In fact I think that..." But what Chomsky did not believe was unclear, let alone what he actually thought.

Talk of the Nation (2/27/08) featured admirer William Kristol, while Day by Day (2/27/08) had an extended interview with protegee David Brooks. Morning Edition (2/28/08) just quoted Buckley himself.

The celebration of Buckley culminated with Weekend Edition host Scott Simon (2/29/08), who turned the cause of death into a eulogy: "Emphysema, such an unseemly thing for a man who was so often a breath of fresh air."

In fact, there was much to criticize about Buckley, who was a supporter of, among other things, white supremacism in the U.S. South and South Africa, McCarthyism, nuclear war against China and the tattooing of AIDS patients' buttocks (Extra!, 5-6/08). Reporting his death, however, NPR didn't think it was worth bringing on a critic who would take a negative view. Why the same outlet took a different approach when the subject was an intellectual on the left rather than the right is perhaps something the NPR ombud could answer.

ACTION: Please ask the NPR ombud why All Things Considered brought on David Horowitz to trash the late Howard Zinn when NPR's extensive coverage of William F. Buckley included no critical guests.

CONTACT:
You can contact NPR ombud Alicia Shepard through this web form:

http://help.npr.org/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=5670&task=ticket

Or call 202-513-3245.

You can post a copy of your message to NPR here:

http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/01/29/action-alert-npr-brings-on-david-horowitz-to-trash-howard-zinn/

 

The Coal Ash Industry Manipulated EPA Data

The Coal Ash Industry Manipulated EPA Data

Friday 29 January 2010

by: Joshua Frank, t r u t h o u t | Report

http://www.truthout.org/the-coal-ash-industry-manipulated-epa-data56485

(Photo: Subterranean Tourist Board)

The coal ash industry manipulated reports and publications about the dangers of coal combustion waste, reports Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The group stated that the Environmental Protection Agency allowed the multibillon-dollar coal ash industry to have virtually unfettered access to the EPA during the Bush administration and now under President Obama.

As a result of the industry's formal relationship with the EPA, insiders were allowed to edit and ghostwrite publications and official reports on the effects of coal waste. The documents obtained by PEER indicate that the coal ash industry "watered down official reports, brochures and fact-sheets to remove references to potential dangers" of coal ash waste. Additionally, the so-called "environmental benefits" of coal ash were repeatedly aggrandized.

"For most of the past decade, it appears that every EPA publication on the subject was ghostwritten by the American Coal Ash Association," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose group examined thousands of coal industry and EPA communications. "In this partnership it is clear that industry is EPA's senior partner."

There is little debate that coal ash is toxic, despite what the wavering EPA and steadfast coal industry purport.

Coal ash is the sludgy muck that is left over after coal is burned to produce electricity and is often laden with heavy metals like arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead and selenium. These harmful substances can produce cancer, kidney problems and nervous-system disease. The amount of heavy metals in coal-ash depends largely on the type of coal burned. However, all coal produces this waste, even though the toxicity may vary slightly depending on the type of coal being incinerated.

While the EPA continues to discuss whether or not it should classify coal ash as a hazardous waste, the environmental and health effects of a coal slurry impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Kingston coal-fired power plant in Harriman, Tennessee, are still not known. The December 2008 catastrophe caused more than 500 million gallons of toxic coal ash to enter the Tennessee River.

The spill was over 40 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. Approximately 525 million gallons of black coal ash flowed into tributaries of the Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga and millions of people living downstream in Alabama and Kentucky. The true adverse effects of the spill are still not known.

An immediate crackdown on TVA and other coal-slurry impoundments by the EPA was likely sidelined as a result of the American Coal Ash Association's formal partnership with the EPA during the Bush administration. If coal ash were deemed a hazardous waste, coal companies could potentially lose billions of dollars in revenue, as they would not be able to promote their toxic coal ash substances for agricultural, consumer and industrial use.

It seems as if the efforts of coal industry representatives have paid off handsomely. Back in 2002, the EPA released a report that indicated the agency had information on the risks of coal ash, yet requests for the data under the Freedom of Information Act were either denied or the documents that were released, with the estimates of cancer risks, were largely blacked out.

Then in 2007, an EPA study found that people living near coal ash sites had as high as a 1-in-50 chance of developing cancer from drinking arsenic-contaminated water. The report also showed that living near such storage sites raised an individual's risk of damage to the liver, kidneys, lungs and other organs exposed to toxic metals in the ash. But the report, according to the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, only made available some of the data, while covering up the true extent of the health risks associated with coal ash.

Recent documents obtained by PEER indicate that the coal industry had access to these health reports and was successful in manipulating the information presented to the public about coal ash's negative effects on humans and the environment.

References indicating the "high-risk" potential of coal combustion waste were deleted from PowerPoint presentations. Cautionary language about coal waste uses in agricultural practices was altered in order to remove negative connotations. In 2007, the coal ash industry inserted language in an EPA report to Congress about how "industry and EPA [need to] work together" in order to block or water down "state regulations [that] are hindering progress" in the use of coal ash waste.

"It is no joke - the terms of the coal ash partnership tuck EPA snugly into bed with industry for the purpose of marketing coal combustion wastes as a product," Ruch of PEER added, noting that the partnership has now crossed over into the Obama administration. "EPA is supposed to be an objective regulatory agency dedicated to protecting the public instead of protecting a gigantic subsidy for a powerful industry."

»

Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland (AK Press, 2008). Frank is also the co-author with St. Clair of the forthcoming Green Scare: The New War on Environmentalism (Haymarket Books, 2010)

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Friends,

 

I question the reporters’ claim of “fewer than 300 demonstrators,” but note that Bush’s poodle avoided the throng by going in the back door.  Nevertheless, people did speak out inside the hearing.  Of course, Blair and many others should be tried as war criminals.  But can you imagine Bush, Cheney, Condi and that crew being investigated by a war crimes commission in Washington, D.C.?

 

Kagiso,

 

Max

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/world/europe/30britain.html?th&emc=th

 

January 30, 2010

Citing 9/11, Blair Defends Legacy at Iraq Inquiry

By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL

LONDON — Almost seven years after he ordered British troops to join the American-led invasion of Iraq, former Prime Minister Tony Blair mounted an unwavering defense of his actions on Friday, saying he would take the same steps again to counter what he depicted as a threat from Saddam Hussein that had assumed far greater dimensions after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In an appearance before an official inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq conflict, Mr. Blair sought to reshape the unflattering legacy molded since he left office in 2007 by his many critics in Britain. He has been accused, often bitterly, of pliantly following former President George W. Bush’s lead into an illegal and unpopular war, and of misleading his countrymen about his reasons for doing so.

 

For Mr. Blair, a grueling six hours of broadcast testimony provided a rare return to the public spotlight at home after 30 months of frenetic travel as a Middle East peace negotiator, and as the beneficiary of lucrative public-speaking engagements and consultancy deals, many of them in the United States.

 

Taken together, popular opprobrium over Iraq and the sense that he has used the stature derived from 10 years in office to amass a fortune — said by British newspapers to be worth at least $30 million — have made the 56-year-old former prime minister, once popular enough to win three general elections, into something approaching a pariah at home.

 

Concern for his safety led the police to mount a huge security cordon around the conference center in central London where the inquiry has been taking testimony, and to usher Mr. Blair’s limousine in and out of the building through a heavily guarded underground parking garage. The protests largely fizzled, however, with fewer than 300 demonstrators mounting a noisy vigil outside the conference center in a drizzling rain.

 

But whether Mr. Blair’s standing was enhanced or diminished by his testimony was uncertain, particularly after a jarring exchange at the end of his testimony, when he was asked by the inquiry’s chairman, Sir John Chilcot, if he had any regrets. After Mr. Blair said he accepted “responsibility” and regretted the divisions the war had caused in Britain, but did not feel “regret for removing Saddam Hussein,” decorum in the hearing room briefly collapsed.

 

“No regret, come on, man!” shouted James Sadri, a young man in the public gallery, prompting the startled inquiry chairman to demand silence. But that was followed by the sounds of sobbing from women in the gallery whose soldier sons had died in Iraq.

 

“You are a liar!” one woman cried, followed by another saying, “You are a murderer!” As Mr. Blair left the room, he passed close to the two women as they were comforted by others in the gallery.

 

A third of the seats in the gallery were assigned to relatives of the 179 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq in the six years of conflict that ended for Britain with the withdrawal of its last units in July last year. Many of the family members told reporters afterward that they were bitterly disappointed not to have heard the former prime minister express some contrition over the conflict, or at least over the deaths of British troops.

 

The inquiry offered Mr. Blair a prominent platform to map out his version of a history that has brought much vilification in his own land. He defended his close relationship with Mr. Bush, depicted by Mr. Blair’s adversaries — and by some of his former aides in their testimony before the inquiry — as having involved a covert plan by Mr. Blair to circumvent hostile opinion both in Britain and at the United Nations.

 

“This isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception,” Mr. Blair said. “It’s a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons program or is that a risk it is responsible to take?”

 

Taut and ill at ease at the outset of his testimony, Mr. Blair quickly caught his rhythm, and rode out a series of impatient thrusts by members of the inquiry panel, effectively dominating the hearing. He offered no apology for joining President Bush in toppling Mr. Hussein, saying repeatedly he thought it was in the best interests of Britain and the world.

 

“The decision I took — and frankly would take again — was: if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction, we would stop him. It was my view then and that is my view now,” he said.

 

The former prime minister said the attacks of Sept. 11 had hardened his resolve on the need to curb the threat that he said Mr. Hussein posed with his years of defiance of United Nations resolutions demanding that he abandon efforts to develop biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

 

“The crucial thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed,” Mr. Blair said. “The point about this terrorist act was that over 3,000 people had been killed on the streets of New York, and this is what changed my perception of risk: if these people inspired by this religious fanaticism could have killed 30,000, they would have.”

 

Some of the most probing questioning turned on Mr. Blair’s confidential meetings with Mr. Bush, starting with an encounter at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., in April 2002, where Mr. Blair has been accused by critics of secretly committing Britain to war. “What I said to George Bush was that we are going to be with you” in countering the perceived threat from Mr. Hussein, he said, but he said he had made it clear that Britain would join in military action only after all diplomatic options had been exhausted.

 

On several occasions, Mr. Blair urged the inquiry to shift from its focus on what led Britain to war to the “2010 question” of what the situation would have been without the invasion. If the United States and Britain had not toppled Mr. Hussein, he said, “we would be facing a situation where Iraq would be competing with Iran on nuclear weapons capability and in support of terrorist groups.”

 

John F. Burns reported from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

 

Home

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Doctors arrested while trying to convince Obama to try Medicare for All

Friends,

Kevin Zeese reported that Dr. Margaret Flowers was thrilled by this statement in President Obama's State of the Union address:   

 

"But, if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know."

 

Dr. Flowers had an answer, a national health program based on a single payer system - improved and expanded Medicare for All.  She wrote a letter to President Obama [see below] and tried to deliver it on January 28.  The letter was refused.

 

So, on January 29, Dr. Flowers & Dr. Carol Paris put together a packet of information and went down to Baltimore's Renaissance Hotel with a sign saying: "Letting You Know, Medicare for All."  Margaret was impacted by Howard Zinn's death.  The day after Zinn died Democracy Now! played an interview they did with him in May 2009.  Amy Goodman asked Zinn - what should people do today to push for social justice.  Zinn pointed to the Baucus 8 - Dr. Flowers, Dr. Paris and Zeese were part of that group who were arrested while urging the Senate Finance Committee to consider Medicare for All.  Zinn said people should go where they are not supposed to go, say what they are not supposed to say and stay when they are told to leave.

 

So on January 29, Dr. Margaret Flowers and Dr. Carol Paris tried to get the Medicare for All message to President Obama, while he was in Baltimore, but were instead arrested.  It was reported that the doctors were soon released with a citation.  But again, the president refused to listen to a message of Medicare for All, and we continue to suffer with a health care system that is broken, overly expensive and fraudulent.  

 

Kagiso,

 

Max

 

January 27, 2010  

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama,

I was overjoyed to hear you say in your State of the Union address last night:

“But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.”

My colleagues, fellow health advocates and I have been trying to meet with you for over a year now because we have an approach which will meet all of your goals and more.

I am a pediatrician who, like many of my primary care colleagues, left practice because it is nearly impossible to deliver high quality health care in this environment. I have been volunteering for Physicians for a National Health Program ever since. For over a year now, I have been working with the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care/ National Single Payer Alliance. This alliance represents over 20 million people nationwide from doctors to nurses to labor, faith and community groups who advocate on behalf of the majority of Americans, including doctors, who favor a national Medicare for All health system.

I felt very optimistic when Congress took up health care reform last January because I remember when you spoke to the Illinois AFL-CIO in June, 2003 and said:

"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program." (applause) "I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see."

But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."

And that is why I was so surprised when the voices of those who support a national single payer plan/Medicare for All were excluded in place of the voices of the very health insurance and pharmaceutical industries which profit off the current health care situation.

There was an opportunity this past year to create universal and financially-sustainable health care reform rather than expensive health insurance reform.

As you well know, the United States spends the most per capita on health care in the world yet leaves millions of people out and receives poor return on those health care dollars in terms of health outcomes and efficiency. This poor value for our health care dollar is due to the waste of having so many insurance companies. At least a third of our health care dollars go towards activities that have nothing to do with health care such as marketing, administration and high executive salaries and bonuses. This represents over $400 billion per year which could be used to pay for health care for all of those Americans who are suffering and dying from preventable causes.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. You said that you wanted to “keep what works” and that would be Medicare. Medicare is an American legacy of which we can feel proud. It has guaranteed health security to all who have it. Medicare has lifted senior citizens out of poverty. Health disparities, which are rising in this nation, begin to disappear as soon as patients reach 65 years of age. And patients and doctors prefer Medicare to private insurance. Why, our Medicare has even been used as a model by other nations which have developed and implemented universal health systems.

Mr. President, we wanted to meet with you because we have the solution to health care reform. The United States has enough money already and we have the resources, including esteemed experts in public health, health policy and health financing. Our very own Dr. William Hsiao at Harvard has designed health systems in five other countries.

I am asking you to meet with me because the solution is simple. Remove all of the industries who profit off of the American health care catastrophe from the table. Replace them with those who are knowledgeable in designing health systems and who are without ties to the for-profit medical industries. And then allow them to design an improved Medicare for All national health system. We can implement it within a year of designing such a system.

What are the benefits of doing this?

• It will save tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of American lives each year, not to mention the prevention of unnecessary suffering.

• It will relieve families of medical debt, which is the number one cause of bankruptcy and foreclosure despite the fact that most of those who experienced bankruptcy had health insurance.

• It will relieve businesses of the growing burden of skyrocketing health insurance premiums so that they can invest in innovation, hiring, increased wages and other benefits and so they can compete in the global market. For example, it is estimated to provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages.

• It will control health care costs in a rational way through global budgeting and negotiation for fair prices for pharmaceuticals and services.

• It will allow patients the freedom to choose wherever they want to go for health care and will allow patients and their caregivers to determine which care is best without denials by insurance administrators.

• It will restore the physician-patient relationship and bring satisfaction back to the practice of medicine so that more doctors will stay in or return to practice.

• It will allow our people in our nation to be healthy and productive and able to support themselves and their families.

• It will create a legacy for your administration that may someday elevate you to the same hero status as Tommy Douglas has in Canada.

Mr. President, there are more benefits, but I believe you get the point. I look forward to meeting with you and am so pleased that you are open to our ideas. The Medicare for All campaign is growing rapidly and is ready to support you as we move forward on health care reform that will provide America with one of the best health systems in the world. And that is something of which all Americans can be proud.

With great anticipation and deep respect,

Margaret Flowers, M.D.
Maryland chapter, Physicians for a National Health Program
mdpnhp@gmail.com
410-591-0892

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Unions Can't Compete With Corporate Campaign Cash

Unions Can't Compete With Corporate Campaign Cash

 

By John Nichols

blog

The Nation

January 24, 2010

 

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/521020/unions_can_t_compete_with_corporate_campaign_cash

 

Some union leaders think that the Supreme Court ruling

in the case of Citizens United v. FEC -- which

essentially takes the limits off campaign spending --

will give them the same flexibility and freedom to

influence the process as it does corporations.

 

These are the same union leaders who imagined that

electing Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress would

lead to the rapid enactment of the Employee Free Choice

Act and meaningful labor-law reform.

 

The AFL-CIO actually filed a brief in the Citizens

United case that urged removal of reasonable restraints

on campaign spending.

 

Indeed, an attorney who prepared the amicus brief for

the AFL-CIO recently participated in a conference call

talking up the merits of the corporate position, along

with representatives of the conservative Heritage

Foundation and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

 

What are the leaders of the labor federation thinking?

 

They imagine that, with spending limits removed,

organized labor will be able to buy enough television

time to reward their political friends and punish their

political enemies.

 

It's a sweet fantasy. But the reality is that

corporations will be buying so much more television

time when it matters -- in the run-up to key elections

-- that the voices of working Americans will drowned

out with the same regularity that they are on Capitol

Hill -- where, it should be noted, overwhelming

Democratic majorities have yet to deliver on even the

most basic demands of the labor movement.

 

To think otherwise is to neglect the reality that one

corporation -- Goldman Sachs -- spends more annually to

pay just its top employees than the combined assets of

all the nation's major unions.

 

University of Wisconsin communications professor Lew

Friedland points out that the nation's four largest

banks would have to allocate a mere one-tenth of one

percent of their assets -- $6 billion -- to counter a

campaign in which the whole of the U.S. labor movement

spent all of its assets.

 

The bottom line is that a union leader who supports the

Citizens United ruling is like a steer who talks up a

steak restaurant because they're both in the same business.

 

Organized labor ought to be siding clearly and

unequivocally with the forces of democracy in the

struggle to establish a political process in which all

voices can be heard, and in which elections are about

ideas and issues rather than fund raising and attacks ads.

 

A few unions "get it."

 

The California Nurses Association and National Nurses

United, the nation's largest nurses union, have

accurately identified the Citizens United decision as a

"disastrous ruling for American workers and American democracy."

 

"The healthcare debate of the last year has provided a

sobering reminder of the already pervasive influence of

giant pharmaceutical and insurance corporations. The

last thing our democracy and political system needs is

ever more spending and political sway by the wealthiest

interests in this country," says Rose Ann DeMoro,

executive director of National Nurses United, the

150,000-member labor organization.

 

The notion that the Citizens United ruling might

somehow make it easier for organized labor to influence

the political process is "ludicrous," says DeMoro.

 

"Equating what unions and working people could spend on

campaigns would be like comparing a toy boat to an

aircraft carrier," she explains. "Corporate influence

peddling in politics already distorts and prevents our

democracy and political system (from functioning)."

 

"Opening the floodgates to unlimited spending is a

dangerous prescription for candidates who will be even

more beholden to the biggest corporate spenders,"

argues DeMoro. "The likely result would be more

dominance of healthcare policy by insurance and drug

giants and less public oversight of our air, water,

food, and workplaces that is needed to protect

consumers and workers."

 

That is the message that all of organized labor should be delivering.

 

_____________________________________________

 

President Put Politics First on Afghanistan

Published on Thursday, January 28, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

President Put Politics First on Afghanistan

by Ray McGovern

Nothing highlights President Obama's abject surrender to Gen. David Petraeus on the "way forward" in Afghanistan than two cables U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent to Washington on Nov. 6 and 9, 2009, the texts of which were released Tuesday by the New York Times.

No longer is it possible to suggest that Obama was totally deprived of wise counsel on Afghanistan; Eikenberry got it largely right.  Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain.

Ambassador Eikenberry, a retired Army Lt. General who served three years in Afghanistan over the course of two separate tours of duty, was responsible during 2002-2003 for rebuilding Afghan security forces.  He then served 18 months (2005-2007) as commander of all U.S. forces stationed in Afghanistan.

Straight Talk

In the cable he sent to Washington on Nov. 6, he explains why, "I cannot support [the Defense Department's] recommendation for an immediate Presidential decision to deploy another 40,000 here."  His reasons include:

~Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not "an adequate strategic partner."  His government has "little to no political will or capacity to carry out basic tasks of governance. ... It strains credulity to expect Karzai to change fundamentally this late in his life and in our relationship."

~Karzai and many of his advisers "are only too happy to see us invest further.  They assume we covet their territory for a never ending ‘war on terror' and for military bases to use against surrounding powers."

[Comment: I wonder where Karzai ever got that idea about military bases-perhaps because we are building them?  I'll bet Karzai also assumes continuing U.S. interest in the projected oil/natural gas pipeline from the extraordinarily rich deposits in the Caspian Sea area and Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, bypassing both Russia and the Strait of Hormuz. ]

~"The proposed troop increase will bring vastly increased costs and an indefinite, large-scale U.S. military role."

~"We overestimate the ability of Afghan security forces to take over...by 2013. ... and underestimate how long it will take to restore or establish civilian government."

~"More troops won't end the insurgency as long as Pakistan sanctuaries remain...and Pakistan views its strategic interests as best served by a weak neighbor."

~"There is also the deeper concern about dependency. ... Rather than reducing Afghan dependence, sending more troops, therefore, is likely to deepen it, at least in the short term.  That would further delay our goal of shifting the combat burden to the Afghans."

More Straight Talk

Eikenberry is even more direct in his cable of Nov. 9, taking strong issue with "a proposed counterinsurgency strategy that relies on a large, all-or-nothing increase in U.S. troops," and warning of the risk that "we will become more deeply engaged here with no way to extricate ourselves..."  Condemning Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations with faint praise, Ambassador Eikenberry describes them as "logical and compelling within his [McChrystal's] narrow mandate to define the needs for a military counterinsurgency campaign within Afghanistan."

"Unaddressed variables," says Eikenberry, "include Pakistan sanctuaries, weak Afghan leadership and governance, NATO civilian-military integration, and our national will to bear the human and fiscal costs over many years."  He complains that the troop increase proposal "sets aside" these variables, even though "each has the potential to block us from achieving our strategic goals, regardless of the number of additional troops we may send."

The ambassador also notes that it is hardly a safe assumption that Karzai and his new team will ever be "committed to lead the counterinsurgency mission we are defining for them," noting that Karzai "explicitly rejected" McChrystal's counterinsurgency proposal when first briefed on it in detail.

Eikenberry does not stop there.  Rather, he bluntly warns-in vain, it turned out-against a premature decision regarding a troop increase, arguing "there is no option but to widen the scope of our analysis and to consider alternatives beyond a strictly military counterinsurgency effort within Afghanistan."  He adds:

~"We have not yet conducted a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of all our strategic options.  Nor have we brought all the real-world variables to bear in testing the proposed counterinsurgency plan."

~"This strategic re-examination could either include or lead to high-level U.S. talks with the Afghans, the Pakistanis, the Saudis and other important regional players-including possibly Iran. ..." 

Extraordinary.  Here is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan bemoaning the fact that, as the President approaches his decision on a large troop increase, there has still been no comprehensive analysis of the wider issues that remain "unaddressed" in McChrystal's proposal.

NIEs

Taking an objective look at a complex national security problem is precisely the job for which President Harry Truman created the CIA, giving its director the task of drafting what became known as National Intelligence Estimates-a process in which all agencies of the intelligence community can take part.

That no estimate has been prepared on Afghanistan/Pakistan and the "unaddressed variables" is an indictment of President Obama and his deference to the military.  The President and other misguided Democrats are hell bent on preventing the bemedaled Petraeus, a likely Republican candidate for president in 2012, from painting them soft on terrorism.  Letting Petraeus run the policy, while avoiding any critical intelligence analysis, is Obama's safe-and cowardly-way out.

During my tenure at CIA (from the administration of John Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush), I cannot think of an occasion on which a President chose to forgo a National Intelligence Estimate before making a key decision on foreign policy.  However, in early 2002, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney set a new kind of precedent when they ordered CIA Director George Tenet NOT to prepare an NIE on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, out of fear that an honest estimate would make it immensely more difficult to attack Iraq.

That did not change until September 2002, when Sen. Bob Graham, then-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned the White House that, absent an NIE, he would do all he could to prevent a vote on war with Iraq.  That's when a totally dishonest NIE was woven out of whole cloth (or, in the words of subsequent Intelligence Committee chair, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, fashioned from "created" intelligence) to hype a threat from non-existent Iraqi WMD.

After that debacle, new leadership was given to the NIE process in the person of Tom Fingar who had run the intelligence unit at the State Department.  It was Fingar who insisted on a bottom-up review of intelligence on Iran's nuclear plans, which resulted in an NIE that helped prevent Bush and Cheney from attacking Iran-or encouraging Israel to do so.

That NIE, issued in November 2007, assessed "with high confidence" that Iran had stopped working on the nuclear weapons part of its nuclear program in late 2003, directly contradicting claims of Bush and Cheney at the time.

Of equal importance, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior military had no appetite to take on Iran (or to acquiesce in Israel's doing so) and insisted that the key judgments of that NIE be made public.

This time, on Afghanistan, it's different.  Army generals Petraeus and McChrystal apparently persuaded the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, that they knew what they're doing and didn't need any intelligence analysts reaching troublesome conclusions.

What's the Rush?

From his vantage point in Kabul, Eikenberry seems impervious to Dick Cheney's charges that the President is "dithering."  The first two (of three) subheadings in Eikenberry's second cable are:  "We Have Time" and "Why We Must Take the Time."  He finishes with an appeal to "widen the scope of our analysis."

Eikenberry is all but demanding a National Intelligence Estimate, but stops short so as not to cross the President or rub salt in the wounds that the ambassador's cables have opened in Petraeus and McChrystal.

Instead of requesting an NIE, Ambassador Eikenberry suggests that the White House appoint "a panel of civilian and military experts to examine the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy and the full range of options."  The list of issues he says this panel "should examine" reads very much like what the intelligence community calls "Terms of Reference" for an NIE.  (As a CIA analyst and manger I contributed to many NIEs and chaired some myself.)

When the White House gave Eikenberry short shrift, he should have resigned, rather than support the misbegotten strategy Obama chose.

Leakophobia

Part of Obama's motivation in not ordering the customary NIE was to avoid any chance that its conclusions might leak, according to a source with good access.  Assuming that intelligence community estimators have not regressed to the Bush/Cheney days of cooking estimates to order, such a leak would certainly have made it more difficult for the President to render unflinching support to Petraeus and McChrystal.

Pity Obama.  It is hard to believe he could be so naive to the ways of Washington and so dismissive of the possibility that there could still be some courageous patriots among the senior officials dismayed at his remarkable retreat from the "transparency" he promised.

The New York Times reports, "An American official provided a copy of the cables to The Times after a reporter requested them."  Well, good for that patriotic truth-teller.  And good, as well, for the New York Times for publishing the cables.  I am permitting myself to hope that still more truth-tellers will emerge from the woodwork, and even that The Times might begin to play the kind of key role it did 40 years ago, once it finally brought itself to concede that Vietnam was a fool's errand.

NODIS

It may be that one needs to have worked at senior levels on the "inside" to understand the twinge that I felt after downloading the NODIS cables made available by The Times.  NODIS cables on my desk at home!

As the cover sheet indicates, "NODIS" means no dissemination beyond the named "addressee and, if not expressly precluded, by those officials under his authority whom he considers to have a clear-cut ‘need to know.'" (Emphasis added.  It is not entirely clear, but I assume that exceptions can now be made for the current Secretary of State and other senior officials of her gender.)

In my day we had to go to the CIA Director's office, sign for, and read NODIS cables right there.  No doubt there are similar controls today.  So, in this case the whistleblower took considerable risk in taking it upon him/herself to make "transparency" real, not just Obaman rhetoric.

The irony?  If, as I have been told, the President put the kibosh on preparation of an NIE for fear it would leak, we now have an even more instructive kind of leak.  Thanks to The Times and its courageous source, we now know not only that President Obama elected to forgo an honest NIE, but that he did so in the face of very strong urging from Ambassador Eikenberry to "widen the scope" of analysis, and not simply kowtow to the Army brass.

I imagine that in years to come, Eikenberry will proudly show his cables to his grandchildren.  Or maybe he won't, out of fear that one of them might ask why he didn't have the guts to quit and let the rest of the country know what he really thought of this latest March of Folly.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his career as a CIA analyst, he prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief and chaired National Intelligence Estimates. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/28-1

 

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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs