The UK Telegraph ran a report today from IHS Jane’s, stating that nearly half of the rebel fighters in Syria are hardline Islamists/jihadis (report here). According to Charles Lister, the author of the report, the idea that the insurgency is mostly secular in nature, just isn’t borne out by the facts. Just a reminder that a week and a half ago John Kerry was still quoting Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy, former senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, with her lowball estimates of radical Syrian rebels (Reuters report here). My how “facts” change so quickly ……..
Category Archives: The Media
Stumbling upon some facts in less than 5 minutes…
Objectivity in reporting always gets news folks to leap onto their soapbox and regale us with how hard they work toward being objective or “fair and balanced”. This one small example, which I stumbled upon in just a few minutes of internet searching demonstrates that truly most Americans, reporters to be included, are intellectually lazy and easily lulled by titles. My own search was precipitated by a curiosity about the ethnic background of this woman’s last name, which I never did ascertain, but I did stumble upon this other fact that seems rather pertinent to the matter at hand.
In recent weeks, I’ve seen this young woman, Elizabeth O’Bagy, on Fox News, talking about her research into the disposition on the Syrian rebel forces and she cites her numerous trips to the region and actually talking to the rebel groups fighting. In a Wall Street Journal piece on August 30, 2013, she wrote about her findings and also included a map where she delineates the areas controlled by various rebel forces in Syria. (WSJ article here). At the end of this article and on Fox News Ms. O’Bagy is identified as a “senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War”, which makes her sound rather important and unbiased, because truly “the Institute for the Study of War” sounds like a serious academic undertaking on studying war (and it might be). Right here is the Institute for the Study of War mission statement, taken straight from their “Who We Are” page:
“The Institute for the Study of War advances an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education. We are committed to improving the nation’s ability to execute military operations and respond to emerging threats in order to achieve U.S. strategic objectives. ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization.”
That mission statement makes it clear that their goal is to do research to aid US strategic objectives and this observation isn’t to pick on GEN Jack Keane, whom I admire greatly, but my point is to show how easily we get lulled into accepting information as factual and unbiased by placing trust in titles. GEN Keane offered some reasoning yesterday that sounded almost verbatim like Ms O’Bagy’s research she presented from her recent trips to Syria and in her WSJ article. Straight from ISW’s Who We Are page: “General Jack Keane (U.S. Army, Ret.), the Chairman of ISW’s board, also played a central role in developing the intellectual foundation for this change of strategy in Iraq, and supported the formation of the Institute in 2007.” (link here).
My few minutes searching on Elizabeth O’Bagy turned up this interesting fact. Ms O’Bagy was/is (not sure since her name is still listed) the political director for a group called Syrian Emergency Task Force, a pro-regime change group. (here she is listed on their Washington DC staff page – with her photo). My point is she may be a loyal American citizen, but her attachment to a foreign resistance movement illuminates a warning light on taking her objectivity on this matter as ironclad. Connections, like hers to this group, should make serious reporters ask more questions and at the very least disclose this connection upfront, rather than let her present her “facts” perched on a less than fully-disclosed personal bio. Yes, her academic credentials are top-notch and she holds a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language and Arabic Studies from Georgetown, and a master’s degree and Ph.D in Arabic Studies and political science from Georgetown too. However, on the Institute for the Study of War bio page there is no mention of her affiliation with this Syrian Emergency Task Force group. (here’s her ISW bio page).
Instead of relying on press reports or being swayed by the American press’s take on Syria, our President should work toward making serious, well-researched decisions. Who he should be consulting on the situation on the ground in Syria are the Israelis. The Israeli intelligence folks make it a priority to know the most minute details of their neighbors, because while they most certainly detest Assad, they remain very careful in advocating regime change in their neighborhood. The Egyptian mess (throwing Mubarak under the bus & embracing the Muslim Brotherhood), where a decades old reliable security blanket was ripped away by reckless American foreign policy gambits of this administration, you can be sure the Israeli intelligence assets are working overtime to understand every nuance of this Syrian conflict, because for them the outcome could be existential. You don’t see President Obama doing much consulting with any foreign governments. He makes rash statements like he is the emperor of the world and then he wonders why other world leaders react like they do to his pronouncements. He has treated the Israelis like they are unwelcome interlopers in Mid-East matters, when they are (or used to be) our closest ally in the region. And since the Russians already play an active role in Syria, propping up Assad, it would behoove President Obama to engage in some one-on-one talks with Vladimir Putin to look for avenues toward building some consensus on Syria too.
A mature American foreign policy attitude would serve American interests much better than this President’s self-absorbed vanities on how much smarter he is than the rest of the world. We need to move away from a personality driven, celebrity magazine take on foreign leaders and start teaching Americans to look at maps, read some history and most importantly to become skeptics when it comes to news reporting – look for conflicts of interest, look for hidden agendas, look for some facts and then do some independent fact-checking. This huge potential conflict of interest in Ms. O’Bagy’s resume took me less than five minutes to stumble upon and I was just curious if she is of Syrian ancestry. Most importantly, as I always told my kids, “Think For Yourself”!!!
Filed under Foreign Policy, Politics, The Media
Who are we?
While Anthony Weiner tries to spin his deviancy down, to part of the new internet age that we all need to accept, lest we too severely narrow our choices of qualified representatives for elected office, Glenn Beck reported a case about a child in America that should be splashed across the news. This child isn’t a Trayvon Martin, who can be used and manipulated to fit a political agenda. No, this is a story about a young girl, whom no one cared about – a girl who ran away from a group home for children in the foster care system. President Obama and his mainstream media followers won’t devote much attention to this story and the AP probably feels it did due diligence by reporting the rape of this little girl by 13 illegal aliens in an apartment where three of the men brought her. Some videotaped the multiple rapes of this child. When they were done with her, they dumped her off in another neighborhood and she was picked up by a woman, when she asked for help. This woman took her to an apartment, where this child was raped again by a man in that apartment (this man was a black man). This child’s attackers don’t fit any of the left’s political agendas, so we won’t be seeing any political action to highlight this case. You won’t find Hillary Clinton speaking out against crimes against children on this case or delving into why this young girl wasn’t in a loving home with her parents. This is just one child, whose name we won’t see trademarked by greedy parents, like Trayvon Martin’s . She’s a little girl who probably doesn’t think she matters to anyone else in the world, but she should matter to all of us. No one reported on her race or ethnicity and you know, it doesn’t matter really and I mentioned who her attackers are, because who they are is why the mainstream media isn’t sensationalizing this case.
Here’s is the link to Glenn Beck’s video about this case. He’s got his own small start-up media enterprise and he could manage to dig up the facts about this crime, so why couldn’t the big news outfits? No, they’re too busy with hours upon hours of coverage about the big Weiner, a pervert, who isn’t fit for public office and who doesn’t deserve even a minute of our time. This little girl’s brutal rapes should give us all pause to look at our country and wonder, “who are we?”
Filed under Culture Wars, Politics, The Media
NSA Junk Mail Folders
This latest massive security leak over the NSA spying on American citizens routine internet usage and on our allies (as well as our enemies) triggered the press to jump into a frenzied mob, albeit a very mindless mob at that. “How dare the government spy on us” seems to be what’s got them in a tizzy. Skip the American press to get any solid reporting! The UK paper, The Guardian, landed the major haul – an in-depth interview with the self-identified leaker, Edward Snowden, a former technical assistant for the CIA. (interview here & here).
The dilemma for many of us, follow all the rules types, is that our instant reaction to this story is to demand they prosecute this leaker to the full extent of the law. Whenever I catch wind of these stories of people with security clearances blatantly violating the trust placed in them by their government, well, I automatically judge that behavior reprehensible. Since 9/11 our government leaped into overdrive on revamping, expanding and completely overhauling our intelligence capabilities, to atone for the colossal intelligence failures that led to that horrific attack. The problem seems to be that with so many different agencies and contractors involved in this devilish monstrosity, that only big government can spawn, no one seems to be able to know for certain the full scope of our “intelligence-gathering” on ordinary, law-abiding American citizens. The even larger looming security risk is with the government relying so heavily on private contractors for much of this work, our intelligence agencies set up a very insecure “team” to run this show. Our premier intelligence agencies, which we’re paying through the teeth to fund, farm out much of this surveillance work to private contractors and seem to be placing our national security in their hands, rather than in the hands of fully vetted and accountable government employees. (another piece from theguardian).
Amazingly, with so much spent to gather this vast amount of intelligence, the best this administration could come up with on Benghazi was blaming some lame video and offering varying “narratives”, minus any concrete evidence or hard facts. No one in the administration has ever fully explained how Fast and Furious came about or who authorized it. We’ve got an attorney general who blazed to national prominence in the Waco/Ruby Ridge/Elian Gonzalez (corrupt to the core) Reno Justice Department and he seems incapable of speaking the truth, so help him God! The former Secretary of State, told us, “what difference does it make?” and she, who rode her husband’s splendid political coat tails to power and who wielded many Presidential powers as the media cheered, “two for one”, to this day is hailed as one of America’s most respected women. What a marvel there, where she ran a team of scurrilous sewer rats in relentless forays looking for any dirt she could dig on any and all she perceived as political enemies. The media turned a blind-eye to her crazed witch hunts (the extent which hopefully someday sees the light of day). She trolled the internet looking for a vast, right-wing conspiracy way back then – an internet trailblazer for sure. And truly, no one in this administration has come anywhere close to understanding the Arab Spring or much of anything else going on in the world.
Billions upon billions spent for intelligence and this is the “quality” of what our government comes up with??? We’re spending a fortune for useless junk mail folders filled to overflowing. The clowns in this administration couldn’t put the pieces of some complicated intelligence puzzle together even with a numbered diagram in front of them and all the pieces already numbered to show them where they fit. Basically we’re paying a fortune to fill up bottomless junk mail folders of useless minutiae. What’s missing from all this reliance on computer wizardry and the ability to acquire so much information is a commensurate level of human intelligence to provide the nuanced analytical requirement to produce a quality intelligence product.
A corrupt government deserves no loyalty and certainly this administration nudged out the Clinton thugs for the title of most corrupt administration in my lifetime. So, I’m left in a moral quandary over this latest leaker, not ready to hail him as a hero for the people and not quite ready to demand we leave no avenue untraveled to hunt him down. Our government is a national disgrace and quite frankly, we should all demand better, because let’s hope we, the American people, still hold true to some pride in being an honest, generous, worthy nation. Let’s hope there are enough of us left who still believe in the Constitution and the rule of law.
Filed under Foreign Policy, Politics, The Constitution, The Media
American Propaganda Masters (ignore that man behind the curtain)
The numerous scandals brewing finally woke up a hypnotized mainstream media, but I want to talk about something else. During the Clinton impeachment drama, their spinmeisters hit the media – print and TV (lacking only to dominate talk-radio) with a relentless wave of media manipulation efforts. They floated deceptive language and phrases to try and confuse the American public into accepting that lying under oath was no big deal depending if the testimony pertained to personal sexual behavior. Along with the “it’s just about sex, sex, sex” line, they also used the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” as a diversionary tactic to convince the American people that Bill Clinton was a “victim”. Rehashing this old scandal is meant to illuminate a problem in America, that trickles down from the highest reaches of our government. Americans, by and large, take their personal liberty and the many blessings of living in a free society for granted.
The mass media manipulations (propaganda) will hit full-force as another corrupt administration tries to survive a series of scandals. The DNC, the Clinton political machine and President Obama with his army of far-left kooks and Chicago-type political operatives will feverishly work to contain these scandals. The Republican partisans will mobilize to capitalize on these scandals and make as much political hay as possible. Seeking the truth will not be the ultimate objective of either side’s efforts. Political objectives will fuel both sides. Even during President Reagan’s second-term, Iran-Contra marred his legacy and it pained me to see some of his cabinet testify using slippery language and, in my view, lie. Both political parties fall prey to lying way too often.
President Clinton’s poll numbers were touted by the Clinton mouthpieces endlessly during the impeachment saga to neutralize and derail the impeachment efforts. He governed using a finger-to-the-wind approach rather than from firm principled footing. To this day much of our news, from all political angles, is presented with polling data as the benchmark on issues. From impeachment to the present-day gay marriage – issues are sold to the American public, not on the merits of the issue, but on polling data. Once over 50% of the public can be cited as “supporting” that viewpoint, the media accepts that polling data as a reflection of the “will of the people“. What we’re being duped into believing is that if you can deceive, trick, and use mass media manipulation techniques (propaganda) effectively, then the end polling results are a true representation of the mainstream public’s position.
The merits of issues should be debated and argued, but to accept the end result of mass media manipulation campaigns, rather than demanding straight facts and the truth, jeopardizes the very foundation of our liberties. Polls reflect nothing more than the effectiveness of the propaganda efforts in America these days. It’s reached the point where reporters talk about the administration’s “narrative” without raising an eyebrow or murmuring even a few probing questions. We should demand the truth and facts, not settle for some slickly packaged “narrative”. An administration that can utter explanations such as the white girlfriend that President Obama talked about in his autobiography was a “composite” of white girlfriends, with no media alarm bells being sounded, highlights how bereft of principles both this administration and the media are. We can’t trust a mainstream media that is so blinded by partisan politics. And the Frank Luntz type of finding the “pulse” of America by how people “react” to certain phrases in speeches provides nothing more than data to be utilized by political propagandists. We need to try to get the American people to THINK about issues, which requires some time spent studying the issues and pondering the merits of both sides of an argument – not gauging superficial “reacting” on a second-by-second basis.
We need some calm, reasonable voices to remind people to put the partisan politics aside and demand to get to the ground truth facts, wherever they fall. Polling numbers reflect nothing more than the barometer of political polarization efforts being fueled by partisan political operatives. Polls do not reflect anything vital and we should demand that those in the media stop relying on polls as the determining factor on issues of great public import. Polls are about how people “FEEL‘”, not about what people “THINK” and hopefully we can get Americans to react less and think more. An informed opinion rests on taking the time to gather as many facts as possible, making a free press a vital link in the process. Maybe if we’re lucky our press will go back to demanding, “the facts” and let the political chips fall where they may.
Filed under Culture Wars, Food for Thought, Politics, The Media
Just the facts, please….
Long ago in America we had three major TV networks from which to glean our news. As a child of the 60s, I remember watching all three networks and truly the choice of which news network to watch depended on personal preferences on the news anchors, not the political angle of the reporting. Each network covered pretty much the same stories and the competition seemed to be on which network would hit the airwaves with the story first.
The Benghazi saga illuminates a bigger picture problem than just the potential cover-up of the events that transpired September 11, 2012. When cable news networks try to bury news stories for political reasons, obfuscate or “spin” (LIE), then more is at stake than just a public disservice to the viewing public.
Living around the Army my entire adult life, I became a compulsive channel-flipper when big news stories break. Boy, during Grenada, CNN had come into existence by then, so there was an added news source, beyond the big 3 and the initial Reagan black-out on reporting had me glued to the TV hoping for some news. Grenada affected my life personally, because my husband had deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division. Once news dribbled out and the Reagan administration provided news updates, well, all the networks provided pretty much the same facts. Grenada was over quickly, but I did receive a letter in the mail that my husband wrote on the back of what looked like a C-ration box and honestly I don’t remember when MREs replaced the C-rations (which I thought were much better truthfully- just a side note, lol). This mail was brought back to Fort Bragg and stuck into envelopes and mailed to our homes, courtesy of the Army. As time went on, I remember Desert Storm living with no TV news, because we were living in Germany and my husband deployed from there. We lived in leased military quarters and had no AFN and my German is lamentably bad, so German TV news was useless. I listened to AFN radio and relied mostly on much slower press accounts of the war.
Watching the news in the past 20 years evolve with the advent of the internet and deepening political divide in America, it’s alarming to me to flip through the channels and see the wide disparity on not only how news stories get covered, but what news stories get covered, the amount of coverage and the disparity on how some news networks choose to bury stories for sheer partisan political purposes. Long ago we used to deride Pravda (that Soviet-era propaganda tool) as a reprehensible tactic to keep a people living in darkness by political deception. Imagine my alarm when I’ll skim through the online English edition of Pravda occasionally and their reporting on many American news stories seems to offer a more honest, truthful accounting than many of our own prominent news outlets.
There’s a big picture crisis brewing in America, when we calmly accept lies for political advantage over demanding the truth. When you can get two completely removed realities at the same time, by just flipping the news channels, well, it sets the stage for political manipulation of the public on a massive scale. This rivals anything that even Stalin or other communist regimes imagined. While I’m disgusted with what looks like a Benghazi cover-up, I’m worrying more about the big picture problem of the American public’s willingness to buy into wholesale lying to fit partisan political agendas. If we the people don’t care about the truth, who will?
Filed under Foreign Policy, Politics, The Media
Fearless reporting continues…. well, I’ll report and you can decide
Our mainstream media once again displayed their unbiased reporting on the Boston bombing and with the Texas district attorney case. After a few weeks of endless news stories linking the murders of Kaufman County DA, Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia to the Aryan Nation, yesterday some woman was charged with the murders (Fox News story here). The authorities cite the motive as revenge, removing it from the “hate crime” the liberals were hoping for. However, in my book revenge sure smacks of hate of the most up close and personal kind. I digress, of course, because that doesn’t fit their story line.
In regards to the Boston terrorist attack, we’ve been served many stories of suspects, Saudi person of interest and rampant speculation, interlaced with pining from some liberal mouthpieces that that the culprit turn out to be a “white American male”, not a Muslim nutcase. President Obama found time in his busy schedule, between assailing the gun owners and gun rights crowd with bitter invective yesterday, to meet with Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, to ostensibly discuss the Syrian conflict (here). Not to be a Doubting Thomas, but the Syrian conflict has been grinding along month after month, requiring no urgent meeting. So, here’s a Tea Party website discussing the same Presidential meeting, with what most likely is happening (story here) – the Saudi government is demanding we send that “person of interest’ back to Saudi Arabia and no matter what the evidence later shows, the official story will be this young man was innocent. So, the media’s quest to pin responsibility on some “white American male” continues unabated.
Three Ring Circus Under The CPAC Tent
So many trial balloons and circus clowns demanding attention at CPAC last week that my mind sort of tuned out most of it. The big name conservative mouthpieces and the GOP seem in disarray and so intent on finding the next “big star” for 2016 that they can’t even focus on big themes and issues. The GOP constantly fixates on each articulate newcomer as “the next big one” who will be their star to pit against the Dem power players. All it takes is a few good speeches and the speculation runs rampant, before they even really know who these newcomers are. Remember the Scott Brown frenzy, which lasted until he got to the Senate and then acted like a typical Massachusetts politician (not a conservative). Marco Rubio does give impressive speeches, but does that make him Presidential material? Rand Paul stands up for what he believes and I applaud his filibuster, but he’s all over the board on so many issues and a relative unknown, that pinning him down on positions seems prudent. Since the Clinton years, the GOP got entrenched in this polling craze, where it’s all about popularity over substance now. We all want to vote as if it’s an American Idol episode rather than deciding on serious leadership qualities. And the conservatives embrace this “star search” tactic too, where Sarah Palin reigns supreme as the conservative fashion adviser, giving thumbs up or down to this year’s conservative fashion debut.
Along with the conservative hype the mainstream media covered the CPAC event with a relentless effort to portray conservatives as out of touch and completely fractured, leaving the conservative punditry following along, gnawing off their own limbs, trying to prove their objectivity at being introspective about recent electoral losses. So many panaceas and noxious “cures” aired that I’m still feeling faint from the dangerous fumes. The groupthink position is they need to attract Hispanic voters, so each GOP hopeful rushes to get in front of the immigration issue. Boom, they all have a speech for that topic now. Peggy Noonan laments the groupthink position quells debate and makes many Republicans afraid to talk according to a GOP report titled “RNC Growth & Opportunity Project” (PDF file here). We fall for this candidate selection by hot button issue positions rather than finding a man/woman of good character and a conservative viewpoint overall. I’d rather vote for a candidate who is honest above all else, even if his/her policy position differs from mine on some issues. Rarely do I agree with Peggy Noonan’s proscriptions for the GOP, but regarding this groupthink charge she hit the mark. The GOP lacks much in the way of original ideas. Hillary set the stage with her politically expedient video release – embracing same sex marriage. Expect the media to begin hammering GOP hopefuls into the ground on this fringe issue. Just like Obama played the women’s health scare tactics, Hillary will use gay marriage as an early wedge issue.
John McCain’s campaign high point probably was picking Sarah Palin, who initially breathed some life into a very dull campaign. She wasn’t really ready for the national stage and the Democrats sensing her star power determined quickly that they had to neutralize her and with the help of the mainstream media, the orchestrated attacks hit full force. The McCain staff nor John McCain ever lifted a finger to fight back. Instead McCain doomed his campaign by the grandstanding stunt of suspending his campaign over the fiscal crisis, making him look inept and foolish. He did in his own campaign truthfully. Likewise, Mitt Romney never articulated a conservative message and he sounded more like Obama than unlike him, leaving many conservatives bewildered and dismayed. Watching that foreign policy debate I found myself growing angry at his incessant pandering to Obama and basically agreeing with him on most foreign policy topics. At the end of that debate, it was clear Obama won hands down and frankly, Romney showed more fighting spirit against his Republican opponents in the primary debates than he ever mustered against Obama. Neither McCain nor Romney really is a conservative at heart and that’s the takeaway lesson I learned and maybe that’s where the GOP keeps going wrong.
The Democrats successfully run a lot of disparate candidates without the party being stigmatized by their oddball candidates, but each loon the GOP lets slip in becomes the face of the GOP. After watching the mainstream media operate, the GOP should use more caution in the primary process and try to weed out the kooks. The GOP needs to find better conservative candidates, which shouldn’t be so difficult considering how well Republicans are doing at state level politics. Knowing how the mainstream media will set out to marginalize GOP candidates, should make it prudent to prepare for the biased reporting and gotcha antics, instead of whining that the media isn’t “fair”.
The GOP needs some real leaders with vision about how to revitalize America – we need big ideas, not all this hot button issue posturing. Everyone likes to invoke Ronald Reagan, so okay let’s find some leaders who really do have a map leading to an America that is the “shining city on a hill”. All these detailed speeches, on immigration and gay marriage, smelling of blatant political posturing, aren’t going to unite conservatives or even inspire anyone – least of all prospective Hispanic voters. The Clinton political machine is setting up these GOP hopefuls with these social issues. If the best the RNC chairman, Reince Priebus, can offer is Mike Huckabee, the ever-friendly and smiling FOX news host as a “model”, then we are doomed Yes, Priebus suggests Huckabee the shameless populist demagogue, who ingratiates himself to anyone to look “inclusive”, (PJ Media story here). I’m packing up my political pup tent and setting up far away from the pundits and media types. Still inching toward the “none of the above” political parties, as my disillusion grows.
Candid Camera…….
So, I’ll post a few links of photos, then ponder your own gut reaction. First up, one James Holmes photo op #1. Now, here photo op #2.
Now, compare photo #1 with photo op #2 of one, Adam Lanza. I’m curious which narrative the mainstream media will feed us. Will it be acts committed by deranged nuts or hapless innocents led astray by our “gun culture” and violent video games? And one can only wonder if the deranged nuts were users of anti-psychotic meds, anti-depressants or illegal substances. Don’t expect any straight forward reporting.
libertybelle diaries 
