Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

The photo above was taken over two years ago, in May of 2003. The mission is still far from accomplished, unless the mission was to introduce chaos, confusion, looting, some poor American kids, and higher paid military contractors to Iraq. Pity the U.S. isn’t even get cheap oil out of the deal.

Setting the record straight on this thing 8 people in the White House rushed us into: after 9/11 we were supposed to track down the terrorist networks of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, not invade Iraq. Passing the buck and avoiding the blame for 9/11 is a government art form. Thus the smokescreen of confusion started, and so it goes on.

Public opinion has moved towards a message to the Bush gang that many Americans want this war to be over now.

There are wars and jihads that continue and remain to be seen, while I watch and wonder is God really an extremist?

This book is John Crawford’s own true story in his words, written while stationed in Iraq as a member of Florida’s National Guard, The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell : An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq. I have not read the book, but listened to Terry Gross’s NPR interview with him, which is down to earth and funny in the way young Crawford offhandedly describes the bloody, stinky details of living through war time. He mentions that accessing too much phone and internet communication back home was a psychologically frustrating problem for many soldiers, that perhaps it would have been better to just disappear for a year.

And so John now appears on The Jon Stewart Show, which I unfortunately missed, but there is a clip on the Comedy Central web site.

This is an average soldier’s story, a guy who ends up in Iraq pretty much for mercenary reasons, in return for the National Guard paying his college tuition. In Iraq his buddies took steroids for combat and valium to stay cool. Kids from unpriviliged backgrounds (“I Ain’t No Fortunate Son”) who watched out for each other.

A tragic lesson learned is from the recent abduction and murder of freelance writer Steven Vincent and his Iraqi translator in Basra, Iraq. His book In The Red Zone accounts “his daring solo expeditions through post-Saddam Iraq… a vivid, frank, and unforgettable portrayal of the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people…” Going it alone at great risk, without a team, you could be attacked by any gang who doesn’t want you hanging around any more. In Steven Vincent’s blog, “In The Red Zone” his final entry, “The Niave American” and writings in the N.Y. Times pointed out corruption in Basra’s local politics.

Yeh, some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give,
oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yoh,

It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no military son,
It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no fortunate one,

It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no fortunate son, no no no,

– John C, Fogerty

The writer at RIGHTWING NUTHOUSE sums up the many issues of the bubbling Intelligent Design debate as well or better than the many commentaries thrown into this primordial stew.

Since President Bush commented recently regarding Intelligent Design, ‘’I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” the evolutionary can of worms has been opened.

It’s great, because now we can hope for many schools of thought to be discussed, although many do not have direct bearing on evolution. They are simply articles of faith and belief, such as those embraced by the idealogues within the Bush inner circle.

The Hindu term Satchitananda, is their concept of an omniscient God. Perhaps it is long overdue for public education classes to turn more attention to the study of the ideas and principles of philosophy and world religions. This will provide students with more balanced and understanding perspectives of global consciousness.

The writings of scholars such as Hank Wesselman and Carlos Castaneda discuss what sounds like a cosmic multicellular entity, composed of all the souls of the universe combined in a matrix. That many minds acting in harmony is closer to God than this world, or maybe it’s just a like a bunch of glowing jellyfish floating around peacefully on the waves of space. I agree with our Great White Father Bush in the White House, and encourage the reading and discussion of these books in classrooms as soon as possible.

For a more scholarly look at geological time and evolution, see the excellent web site, The Virtual Fossil Museum.

Photo by Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times, Newspaper Photographer of the Year 2004.

Working above and beyond the political posturing, opinions, rhetoric and editorials, many photojournalists risk their lives to shed a little light on some very dark places. Photojournalism is raw photography on the jagged edge of survival. Red hot as in risk-your-life endangerment, not Frederick’s of Hollywood hot. No photo retouched beautification allowed in Iraq, Liberia, The West Bank, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay. Witness the true stories at The Best of Photojournalism 2004.

“When any country says it’s going to go to war, these are the kinds of things that we can expect,” reflects photojournalist Chris Hondros as he narrates The Orphans of Tall Afar on the tragic events he witnessed and photographed. During a routine night patrol through the streets of Tall Afar, Iraq, as is customary after curfew U.S. soldiers ordered a car to stop. When the car failed to slow down, soldiers fired directly into the front seats. After the shooting was over, in the back seat were six crying children instantly orphaned.

The book 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA by Bernard Goldberg is a simple and cute idea. The American Film Institute has their 100 Greatest Films lists, there’s the easy reading 100 Naked Girls which could lead to 100 Promises to My Baby.

By pointing a finger at living people the author disapproves of, this catchy title smells a bit like the intolerance of the Hollywood Blacklist, made amidst anti-Communist hysteria in America in the 1950’s. Stay tuned for many magazine and hastily published copy cat and follow-up 100 Lists, each with their own spin.

Everyone has an opinion about this concept, and it makes for interesting brain scanning while one is idlely waiting for hours at an airport or painting a house. An equally interesting, and perhaps more helpful book would be 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE HELPING IMPROVE AMERICA, but perhaps that would be too Reader’s Digesty or just too difficult for Bernard Goldberg to research. It’s easier to criticize than to create, and we live in rootin’ tootin’ times when folks find it more convenient to shoot first and ask questions later. Or as the “screwed up” Michael Moore says on his web site, it’s easier to investigate steroid use in baseball, than to investigate CIA leaks.

Here is a link to the complete list at progressive U. I am happy to see on the list the bizarre radio mouth, Michael Savage, as well as the hooker lovin’ preacher Jimmy Swaggart. And yet the list is benign, as if Goldberg omitted the best and brightest investigative journalists, truth tellers, muckrakers such as Seymour Hersh, in favor of folks who are better known and in many cases retired, thus being ineffective at screwing up America. So, beware of the horrible Anna Nicole Smith and Harry “Dayo!” Belaphonte! And that do gooder Jimmy Carter, he may just pump up another dangerous charity such as Habitat for Humanity and cause property values to plummet!

While avoiding these screw ups in the Entertainment world, you can work on a list of 100 Screw Ups in the U.S. Goverment, such as Abu Ghraib prison commander, General Janis Karpinski and her band of photo happy prison pranksters, Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, Specialist Charles A. Graner, Private Lynndie England, and four others. Following a chain of command of government officials and the contractors they hired, it would be very easy to make a list of 100. Not a book that many proud Americans would care to buy and display on their living room coffee tables.

Following up on a previous entry, “Education In Terrorism”, apparently George Clooney is seriously taking notes on the thought provoking and intriguing historical stories within these books. He is filming “Syriana” an adaptation of the story of Middle East CIA operative Robert Baer based on his book,
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism.

As a lower life form, Karl Rove just couldn’t help himself. A vindictive creature defends its territory. When a primary Bush Iraq WMD smokescreen point was debunked by Joe Wilson, a former US ambassador, the rebuttal was to reveal Wilson’s wife as a working CIA agent. Treasonous! This has become a test of Deep Throat style entrusted journalistic sources, and now looks like Rove is the latest deep throat. The Bush Administration is cautiously coping with the case of the squealer.

Current CIA Leak Timeline. My apologies to all good pigs of the world.

Sign here to throw Karl Rove out… or if you LOVE Karl Rove, check this site out.

London Calling: Wake Up! The terrorist bombings in London today are yet another rude awaking to the presence of Al-Qaeda in many countries around the world.

Many of these authors listed below are U.S. government, CIA, or Washington D.C. insiders aware of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda well before the 9/11 attacks. Read some of these and learn more about the dark factors that mold our times.

See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism by Robert Baer, former CIA officer.

Sleeping With The Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer, former CIA officer.

Against All Enemies by Richard A. Clarke

Defeating The Jihadists: A Blueprint For Action by Richard A. Clarke, began his federal service in 1973 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In the Reagan administration, he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. In the first Bush administration, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs and then a member of the National Security Council staff. He served for eight years as a special assistant to President Clinton and was National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism for both President Clinton and President George W. Bush.

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll, managing editor for the Washington Post.

Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush by John W. Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel.

Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib by Seymour M. Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter.

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Michael Scheuer, senior intelligence analyst who created and advised a secret CIA unit for tracking and eliminating bin Laden since 1996.

Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam & the Future of America by Michael Scheuer, senior intelligence analyst who created and advised a secret CIA unit for tracking and eliminating bin Laden since 1996.

House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger, investigative journalist.

A Pretext For War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies by James Bamford.

Plan Of Attack by Bob Woodward, famous reporter for the Washington Post.

Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam’s War Against Americaby Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, National Security Council directors during the Clinton administration.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States