RIP-George Carlin, You are missed already!

Following up on yesterday's post, I ran across this article in today's NYT...

"Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner"

Getting a story on the evening news isn't easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network.

"Generally what I say is, 'I'm holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,'" she said last week in an appearance on "The Daily Show," referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade." 'It's aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don't put my story on the air, I'm going to pull the trigger.'"

Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.

"If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts," Ms. Logan said.

According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been "massively scaled back this year." Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The "CBS Evening News" has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC's "World News" and 74 minutes on "NBC Nightly News." (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)

See, Mr Rich, it is the Media's fault we're not getting the needed reporting!

Interestingly, the MSM, or rather, the Fawning Corporate Media(FCM) seem bound and determined to continue in their wayward ways, in regards to Iran, that lead us into the current Iraqi fiasco. In an excellent article posted at Raw Story and cross-posted at Anti-War.Com, former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern asks this chilling question...

Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Us?

"...a perfect storm seems to be gathering in late summer or early fall," when the Bush administration and allies in Israel will launch attacks against Iran.

"This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy," writes McGovern. "Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details."

McGovern takes a dim view on the media's role...

Controlled Media

The experience of those of us whose job it was to analyze the controlled media of the Soviet Union and China for insights into Russian and Chinese intentions have been able to put that experience to good use in monitoring our own controlled media as they parrot the party line.

Suffice it to say that the FCM is already well embarked, a la Iraq, on its accustomed mission to provide stenographic services for the White House to indoctrinate Americans on the "threat" from Iran and prepare them for the planned air and missile attacks.

At least this time we are spared the "mushroom cloud" bugaboo. Neither Bush nor Cheney wish to call attention, even indirectly, to the fact that all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last November that Iran had stopped nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 and had not resumed it as of last year.

In a pre-FCM age, it would have been looked on as inopportune, at the least, to manufacture intelligence to justify another war hard on the heels of a congressional report that on Iraq the administration made significant claims not supported by the intelligence.

But (surprise, surprise!) the very damning Senate Intelligence Committee report got meager exposure in the media.

So far it has been a handful of senior military officers that have kept us from war with Iran. It hardly suffices to give them vocal encouragement, or to warn them that the post WW-II Nuremberg Tribunal ruled explicitly that "just-following-orders" is no defense when war crimes are involved.

McGovern points out Cheney's role...

Attacking Iran is Vice President Dick Cheney's brainchild, if that is the correct word.

Cheney proposed launching air strikes last summer on Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases, but was thwarted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff who insisted that would be unwise, according to J. Scott Carpenter, a senior State Department official at the time.

Chastened by the unending debacle in Iraq, this time around Pentagon officials reportedly are insisting on a "policy decision" regarding "what would happen after the Iranians would go after our folks," according to Carpenter.

Serious concerns include the vulnerability of the critical U.S. supply line from Kuwait to Baghdad, our inability to reinforce and the eventual possibility that the U.S. might be forced into a choice between ignominious retreat and using, or threatening to use, "mini-nukes."

Pentagon opposition was confirmed in a July 2007 commentary by former Bush adviser Michael Gerson, who noted the "fear of the military leadership" that Iran would have "escalation dominance" in any conflict with the U.S.

Writing in the Washington Post last July, Gerson indicated that "escalation dominance" means, "in a broadened conflict, the Iranians could complicate our lives in Iraq and the region more than we complicate theirs."

The Joint Chiefs also have opposed the option of attacking Iran's nuclear sites, according to former Iran specialist at the National Security Council, Hillary Mann, who has close ties with senior Pentagon officials.

Mann confirmed that Adm. William Fallon joined the Joint Chiefs in strongly opposing such an attack, adding that he made his opposition known to the White House, as well.

The outspoken Fallon was forced to resign in March, and will be replaced as CENTCOM commander by Gen. David Petraeus – apparently in September. Petraeus has already demonstrated his penchant to circumvent the chain of command in order to do Cheney's bidding (by making false claims about Iranian weaponry in Iraq, for example).

In sum, a perfect storm seems to be gathering in late summer or early fall.

Bill Kristol seems to think it'll occur after the general election... If Obama is elected!

“I do wonder with Senator Obama, if President Bush thinks Senator Obama’s going to win, does he somehow think — does he worry that Obama won’t follow through on that policy,” Kristol added. Host Chris Wallace then asked if Kristol was suggesting that Bush might “launch a military strike” before or after the election:

WALLACE: So, you’re suggesting that he might in fact, if Obama’s going to win the election, either before or after the election, launch a military strike?

KRISTOL: I don’t know. I mean, I think he would worry about it. On the other hand, you can’t — it’s hard to make foreign policy based on guesses of election results. I think Israel is worried though. I mean, what is, what signal goes to Ahmadinejad if Obama wins on a platform of unconditional negotiations and with an obvious reluctance to even talk about using military force.

That same meme was echoed by another prominent Neocon, John Bolten...

Bolton suggested that an attack on Iran depends on who Americans elect as the next President:

I think if they [Israel] are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President. I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor.[...]

Bolton then concluded that Arab states would be excited if the U.S. or Israel attacked Iran:

I don’t think you’d hear the Arab states say this publicly, but they would be delighted if the United States or Israel destroyed the Iranian nuclear weapons capability.

McGovern has an excellent solution to halting the madness... Impeach the Bastards...

Where Are You, Conyers?

In 2005, before John Conyers became chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, he introduced a bill to explore impeaching the president and was asked by Lewis Lapham of Harpers why he was for impeachment then. He replied:

"To take away the excuse that we didn't know. So that two, or four, or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, 'Where were you, Conyers, and where was the U.S. Congress?' when the Bush administration declared the Constitution inoperative...none of the company here present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity [or] say that 'somehow it escaped our notice.'"

In the three years since then, the train of abuses and usurpations has gotten longer and Conyers has become chair of the committee. Yet he has dawdled and dawdled, and has shown no appetite for impeachment.

On July 23, 2007, Conyers told Cindy Sheehan, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, and me that he would need 218 votes in the House and they were not there.

A week ago, 251 members of the House voted to refer to Conyers' committee the 35 Articles of Impeachment proposed by Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, who sat on Judiciary with Conyers when it voted out three articles of impeachment on President Richard Nixon, spoke out immediately: "The House should commence an impeachment inquiry forthwith."

Much of the work has been done. As Holtzman noted, Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment, together with the Senate report that on Iraq we were led to war based on false pretenses – arguably the most serious charge – go a long way toward jump-starting any additional investigative work Congress needs to do.

And seldom mentioned is the voluminous book published by Conyers himself, "Constitution in Crisis," containing a wealth of relevant detail on the crimes of the current executive.

Conyers' complaint that there is not enough time is a dog that won't hunt, as Lyndon Johnson would say.

How can Conyers say this one day, and on the next say that if Bush attacks Iran, well then, the House may move toward impeachment.

That'd be the proverbial 'Day late and a dollar short', Mr. Conyers...! Let's set the fricking table for Miz Pelosi already!!!