33. An occasional guest column like the one by Representative John Conyers, Washington Post, July 29, 1991, brought out some of the facts that the regular media commentators and journalists seemed to overlook.
34. New York Times, June 10, 1990.
35. Washington Post, June 18, 1991.
36. Assurances were given by State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler to the press and by John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State, to a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that the United States would not take sides. Walid Khalidi, “The Gulf Crisis: Origins and Consequences,” Journal of Palestine Studies 20 (Winter 1991): 5—28; Christopher Hitchens, “Why We Are Stuck in the Sand,” Harper’s Magazine, January 1991, pp. 70—75, 78; Linda Diebel, “Was Saddam Set Up for the Kill?” Toronto Star, March 10, 1991.
37. Public statement, August 15, 1990, quoted in Extra! May 1991, p. 9.
38. One major daily, Newsday, January 21, 1991, in a story by Knut Royce, debunked the “unconfirmed, weak, or contradictory intelligence” that Hussein was on the verge of acquiring an atomic weapon. But most news organizations were amplifiers for the White House line.
39. New York Times, September 24, 1990.
40. Norman Finkelstein, “Double Standards in the Gulf,” Z Magazine, November 1990, pp. 28-29.
41. Bush’s statement of October 16, 1990, quoted in Extra! May 1991, p. 9.
42. Americans were “emotionally involved in getting rid of the beast,” reported the Washington Post, August 7, 1990. When the US aerial attack against Iraq on the night of January 17, 1990, one TV news announcer commented: “We must stop that madman.” See Abbas Malek, “American Press Coverage of the Persian Gulf Crisis,” unpublished monograph, Washington, D.C., 1991.
43. New York Times, February 1, 1991.
44. New York Times, February 17, 1991.
45. New York Times, November 25, 1990.
46. Newsweek, March 4, 1991.
47. Arthur Rowse, “Flacking for the Emir,” Progressive, May 1991, p. 20.
48. NBC special report, January 17, 1991.
49. Cokie Roberts on “This Week with David Brinkley,” January 20, 1991.
50. CBS special report, January 17, 1991.
51. The NBC and CNN reports were on January 17, 1991.
52. CBS special report, January 17, 1991.
53. For instance, George Will’s comments on a televised ABC panel, January 19, 1991.
54. For these and many other examples, see the network nightly news reports and their Gulf war TV specials, from January 17 through all of February 1991.
55. Evening television report, January 21, 1990.
56. “MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour,” January 23, 1990.
57. James Ledbetter, “Deadlines in the Sand, How the Pentagon Ambushed the Press,” Village Voice, February 5, 1991.
58. NBC late night report, January 17, 1991.
59. Peter Rothberg, “Pentagon Flacks,” Lies of Our Times, July-August 1991, p. 12.
60. When Nation Magazine et al. vs. US Department of Defense had its day in court, the New York Times and most other major media failed to take note of this struggle for press freedom: Steve Rhodes, “Gulf Press Restrictions Suit Shackled,” Guardian, May 8, 1991. In a long article on press restrictions imposed by the military, the Washington Post (January 26, 1991) lavished all of one line on the suit. The case was dismissed by the federal judge because the war had ended.
61. On how the media discredited and downplayed the antiwar protests, see Chapter
62. “Casualties at Home: Muzzled Journalists,” Extra! May 1991, p. 15.
63. Newsweek, February 18, 1991.
64. “The Missing Bodies,” Lies of Our Times, June 1991, p. 17.
65. NBC evening news, February 25, 1991.
66. London Sunday Times, March 3, 1991.
67. NBC evening news, February 16, 1991.
68. CBS evening news, February 14, 1991.
69. Washington Post, September 9, 1 1, 20, 25, 27, 29, 1990; October 29, 1990; December 12 and 19, 1990; February 2, 1991.
70. New York Times, February 28, 1991; Washington Post, March 1, 1991.
71. ABC report, March 15, 1991.
72. Newsweek, February 4, 1991, p. 50.
73. Washington Post, January 29, 1991.
74. New York Times, March 31, 1991, and NBC-TV evening news, March 20, 1991.
75. United Nations, The Impact of War on Iraq, Report to the Secretary-General on Humanitarian Needs in Iraq in the Immediate Post-Crisis Environment by a Mission to the Area Led by Mr. Martti Ahsaari, Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management, 20 March 1991.
76. Quoted in Jack Colhoun, “Report: U.S. War Was ‘Bomb Now, Die Later,’ ” Guardian, June 12, 1991, p. 3; see also Dennis Bernstein and Larry Everest, “Health Catastrophe in Iraq,” Z Magazine, June 1991, pp. 27-32.
77. ABC report, May 20, 1991; Washington Post, May 21, 1991.
78. A few notable exceptions that dealt with the human costs of the war for Iraq were PBS’s “The Bill Moyers Report,” June 18, 1991; the even-better PBS “Frontline” documentary by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, entitled “The War We Left Behind,” November 4, 1991, and “Aftermath: A Look Back at Iraq” PBS, January 16, 1992.
79. Haas quoted in New York Times, November 5, 1991.
80. For a fuller discussion of these points see my “Bush’s Splendid Little War,” Covert Action Information Bulletin, Spring 1991, pp. 64-65.
81. Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty (London: Quartet Books, 1978), p. 81.
Chapter 11, Propaganda Themes
1. For a fuller exposition, see the author’s The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution, and the Arms Race (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989).
2. Time, April 16, 1984.
3. Manuel de Varona, quoted in the New York Daily News, January 8, 1961.
4. Victor Bernstein and Jesse Gordon, “The Press and the Bay of Pigs,” Columbia University Forum reprint. Fall 1967.
5. New York Times, January 8, 1961; Time, January 13, 1961; for a fuller discussion, see Bernstein and Gordon, “The Press and the Bay of Pigs.
6. New York Times, January 8, 1961.
7. Neal Houghton, “The Cuban Invasion of 1961 and the U.S. Press, in Retrospect,” Journalism Quarterly 42 (Summer 1965): 423—424.
8. For instance, Hanson Baldwin’s column, New York Times, August 1, 1961, and Tad Szulc’s article in Look, July 18, 1961.
9. ABC evening news, November 21, 1979. The interview was with Professor J. C. Hurewitz.
10. For these and other examples, see Edward Said, Covering Islam (New York: Pantheon, 1981).
11. New York Times, August 22, 1984.
12. New York Times, August 28, 1984.
13. Washington Post, September 13, 1984.
14. Times editor John Vinocur claimed that the Germans were anti-American because they suffer from a “malaise” and an “angst” that come in part from a lack of sufficient authority: New York Times Magazine, November 15, 1981.
15. For background on El Salvador, see Marvin Gettleman et ah, El Salvador: Central America and the New Cold War (New York: Grove Press, 1981); Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit (New York: Times Books, 1984).
16. For a striking exception, see the excellent series of articles by A. Kent MacDougall in the Los Angeles Times, November 2—15, 1984. While MacDougall does not indict capitalism as a system, he does show how “industrialization” and propertied classes in the Third World have done little for the mass of people and have actually increased poverty and the concentration of wealth. Upon retiring, MacDougall came out as a Marxist.
17. Joyce Chediac, “Turkey: The Secret El Salvador,” Workers World, February 19, 1982; and Mehmet Demir, “Turkey: Repression Tightens Grip as Rightwing Gathers Strength,” Guardian, September 12,1984; Deidre Griswold, Indonesia, The Second Greatest Crime of the Century (New York: World View, 1970). Even when the press offered a rare criticism of repression in US client states, as when the Washi
ngton Post ran an editorial (July 19, 1991) criticizing the Turkish government’s autocratic ways, it greatly understated the extent of human rights abuses in Turkey. Violent political repression and horrifying practices of torture continued to be routinely practiced by Turkish military and police, according to a letter to the Post (August 4, 1991) by the deputy director of Helsinki Watch.
18. Washington Post, September 16, 1984; New York Times, August 26, 1984. Times correspondent Max Frankel, who later became editor-in-chief, described Indonesian General Suharto, leader of the massacre that took an estimated 250,000 to one million lives, as “an efficient and effective military commander”: New York Times, March 13, 1966.
19. Associated Press report in Philadelphia Inquirer, October 29, 1981.
20. Amnesty International report, August 1982; and Amnesty International newsletter, January 1981; also Fried et ah, Guatemala in Rebellion.
21. NBC evening news, February 19, 1980.
22. Christian Science Monitor, July 9, 1980.
23. New York Times, July 8, 1981.
24. Condoning the Killing: Ten Years of Massacres in El Salvador. Based on a report of the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights in Central America and investigations by the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (Washington, D.C.: Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean, 1990).
25. Washington Post, August 18 and September 16, 1990; New York Times, August 16, 1990; Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1990.
26. Washington Post, August 18, 1990; also August 16, 1990.
27. Dorothee Benz, “Buthelezi: Apartheid Opponent or Client?” Extra! July/August 1991, p. 11.
28. New York Times, April 18, 1990.
29. For instance, Lally Weymouth, “Washington’s New Favorite South African,” Washington Post, June 26, 1991.
30. “Pretoria’s Hand Lurking Behind Violence,” Guardian, October 23, 1991, p. 13: compiled from reports by Africa News and Southscan.
31. Benz, “Buthelezi: Apartheid Opponent or Client?” p. 11.
32. A study by the highly respected South African research institute, the Community Agency for Social Enquiry, found that in the nine-month period ending April 30, 1990, Inkatha was responsible for initiating violence in 66 percent of the incidents, the police and military in nearly 20 percent, and the ANC in 6 percent: see the letter by a lawyer and a professor in the Washington Post, June 29, 1991. The journalists who write for the US media seem unable to come up with information of this sort about Buthelezi.
33. Survey in Johannesburg Star, July 25, 1990. The Black population of Durban is mostly Zulu, yet only 3 percent support Inkatha, according to the Johannesburg Weekly Mail, April 10, 1990.
34. Roger Morris et al., “Through the Looking Glass in Chile,” Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 1974.
35. New York Times, July 26, 1983, see also Guardian editorial, August 10, 1983.
36. New York Times Magazine, November 15, 1981, pp. 40-45, 116-125.
37. John Wicklein, “The Gospel According to ‘60 Minutes’,” Progressive, April 1983, p. 49; see also Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway, “CBS Sees Red,” Village Voice, February 22, 1983.
38. Kevin Klose in Washington Post, January 5, 1991.
39. New York Times, August 5, 1984.
40. Amy Wilentz, The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989); also I. B. Troupe, “Handling Haiti,” Lies of Our Times, February 1991, pp. 15-16.
41. New York Times, December 13, 1991; Troupe, “Handling Haiti.”
42. See, for instance, the New York Times editorial, October 2, 1991.
43. Thomas Friedman in New York Times, October 4, 1991.
44. “The United States has so far stalled in fully cutting off supplies to Haiti, citing humanitarian concerns”: Kim Ives, “Haitian Military Puts Civilian Fig Leaf on Coup,” Guardian, October 23, 1991, p. 17.
45. Howard French reporting, New York Times, October 7, 1991.
46. Howard French in New York Times, October 22, 1991.
47. Washington Post, October 7, 1991.
48. Ibid.
49. New York Times, November 4, 1991.
50. See Kim Ives, “Exiled Aristide to Haitians: ‘Hold on, don’t let go,’ ” Guardian, October 9, 1991, p. 15; Ives, “Haitian Military Puts Civilian Fig Leaf on Coup,” p. 17.
51. David Peterson, “What Price Democracy?” Lies of Our Times, November 1991, p. 7.
52. Op-ed, New York Times, October 27, 1991.
53. See Washington Office on Haiti, Report of October 1991; also “A Report to LOOT from Haiti,” Lies of Our Times, November 1991, p. 7.
54. New York Times, April 2, 1964.
55. New York Times, March 17, 1975.
56. “A Tottering Structure of Lies,” Sojourner, December 1983.
57. Washington Post, December 7, 1983.
58. New York Times, April 21, 1987.
59. Morris et al., “Through the Looking Glass in Chile, p. 25.
60 William Leogrande and Carla Anne Robbins, “Oligarchs and Officers,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1980, pp. 1084-1103; Cynthia Arnson, “White Paper,” Nation, May 9, 1981; Report by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, Washington, D.C., August 1984.
61. New York Times editorial, October 7, 1984.
62. New York Times editorial, March 30, 1984.
63. ABC evening news, March 28, 1984.
64. Standing alone and unnoticed by other media in the coverage of El Salvador is the fine documentary “Our Forgotten War that appeared on PBS s Frontline senes in 1988.
65. Elizabeth Kirkendail, “Election Day in El Salvador,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 7, 1991.
66. Manuel Torres, “Fraud in Salvador Vote Count Imperils Country’s Future,” People’s Weekly World, March 23, 1991.
67. CBS evening news, September 13, 1973.
68. New York Times Magazine, May 7, 1972.
69. NBC evening news, November 29, 1984.
70. Stephen Radchenko’s report on a trip to the USSR in City Paper, Washington, D.C., July 13, 1984.
71. Robert Kaiser and Barbara Walters on ABC’s “20/20” program, November 22, 1984.
72. New York Times, August 22, 1991.
73. Robert Cirino, The Power to Persuade (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1974), p. 53.
74. New York Times, December 30, 1979. For an extended discussion of anti-Arab bigotry and imagery, see Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978), and his Covering Islam.
75. Newsday, January 10, 1991.
76. New York Times, December 30, 1990.
77. U.S. News & World Report, December 24, 1990.
78. New Republic, March 10, 1986.
79. New York Times, October 26, 1990.
80. New York Times, February 28, 1991.
81. Eqbal Ahmad quotes Ajami and makes the counterpoint in his “The Gulf in the American Media,” Lies of Our Times, July/August 1991, p. 9.
82. NPR, January 19, 1991.
Chapter 12, Methods of Misrepresentation
1. Ben Kiernan, “War and Forgetting: Obstructing Peace in Cambodia,” Lies of Our Times, June 1991, p. 14; the Times actually published a guest column by Richard Dudman entitled, “Pol Pot: Brutal, Yes, but No Mass Murderer,” New York Times, August 17, 1990.
2. Deidre Griswold, Indonesia, The Second Greatest Crime of the Century (New York: World View, 1970); Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End Press, 1979), pp. 205—217.
3. Time, December 17, 1965; New York Times, January 16, 1966. Also the columns in the Times by C. L. Sulzberger, April 8, 1966, and by James Reston, June 19, 1966.
4. New York Times, April 5, 1966.
5. For information on East Timor, see Pat Flanagan, “East Timor: The Final Solution,” Monthly Review, May 1980, pp. 41-46; also Chomsky and Herman, The Washington Connection, pp. 132—204; Colman McCarthy, “Maintaining Standards of Tyranny,” Washington Post, November 26, 1991.
6. Noam Chomsky, “East Timor: The Press Cover-Up,” Inquiry, February 19,
1979.
7. Newsweek, September 15, 1975.
Notes 253
8. For refutations of these various disinformation campaigns, see the first edition of this book; also: Lee Ullian, “Haig Poisons Facts in New Anti-Soviet Blast,” Daily World, September 18, 1981; the critique of the yellow rain thesis in Progressive, March 1984; Grant Evans, The Yellow Rain Makers (London: Verso, 1983); articles in Science, October 2, 1981, November 27, 1981, April 9, 1982, May 30, 1980, October 23, 1981; “The Pope Plot,” Counterspy, June/August 1983; David Eisenhower and John Murray, Warwords: U.S. Militarism, the Catholic Right and the “Bulgarian Connection” (New York: International Publishers, 1986); David Pearson, “KAL 007: What the U.S. Knew and When We Knew It," Nation, August 18, 1984, pp. 18—25; R. W. Johnson, Shootdown: Flight 007 and the American Connection (New York: Viking, 1986); Michael Parenti, “1981: The Disappearing Libyan Hit Team,” Lies of Our Times, March 1992, pp. 14-15.
9. NBC specials, January 25, 1983 and, September 21, 1983.
10. New York Times, October 2, 1991; for details see Lies of Our Times, November 1991, pp. 14-15.
11. CBS evening news, January 23, 1985.
12. New York Times, February 26, 1986.
13. New York Times, March 13, 1986.
14. New York Times, January 24, 1986.
15. New York Times, March 12, 1986. For accounts of Marcos’s corruption and abuses, see the major network evening news reports and the New York Times and Washington Post from January 20 to February 15, 1986.
16. NBC evening news, January 24, 1986.
17. Study by WAMM Media Committee, Minneapolis, MN, issued January 12, 1989; cited in Martin Lee and Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1990), p. 17.
18. See R. B. DuBoff in In These Times, March 27, 1985.
19. David Spurr, “Writing off Third World Issues,” In These Times, April 14-20, 1982.
20. Ibid.
21. For example, see New York Times, August 26, 1986. On the same kind of false balancing that equated the contra murders with the Sandinistas, see New York Times, February 26, 1990.
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