Comments on: PBS’ Frontline Cop-Out

By: incompetence theories - ha!

incompetence theories - ha! — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:29:30 +0000

The Frontline show didn’t seem to use the word OIL, as in petroleum, as in most of the remaining oil on Earth is located around the Persian Gulf.

The “Uncovered” documentary “forgot” to mention oil considerations, too.

Richard Nixon coined the term “limited hang out” - it refers to disclosing part of a scandal to avoid exposing the whole thing.

The biggest lie is the false claim that 9/11 was a surprise attack even though about 15 countries warned the White House that it was about to happen. There’s lots of disinformation about this, but it’s also well documented that France, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, Israel, and numerous other allies provided specific warnings about what, when and where. Without the “attack,” the neo-cons could not have been able to mobilize to grab Iraqi oil fields and Afghan poppy fields.

“we are witnessing a sequential war to control the largest reserves on a planet that is running out of oil.”
– Michael Ruppert, From the Wilderness http://www.fromthewilderness.com

“The poor countries will bear most of the burden [of high oil prices]. But the United States will be in serious difficulties. There is, I fear, a strong danger of some ill-considered military intervention to try to secure oil.”
– Colin Campbell, petrogeologist,
Association for the Study of Peak Oil, December 2000 http://www.peakoil.net

By: snafubar

snafubar — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:44:23 +0000

Ray, I take exception to your assertion

“Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team;”

There was a four-part Frontline series called “News War” that aired almost a year ago that addressed this.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/

These four episodes were entirely dedicated to the “Fourth Estate” and it’s selling of the war to the American public too lazy or too gullible to check anything out. They ran examples of their own complicity and laid bare the best narrative of the story I have seen yet.

So as much as I admire and solute your efforts in every place I have seen them, Ray, in this case I think you have not given credit where credit is due by taking too narrow a focus on one of the good guys. You can’t legitimately call someone else’s efforts insufficient if indeed those efforts are there but in someplace easily found that you did not see.

By: Centrocitta

Centrocitta — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:45:35 +0000

Now, today, we have Bush scolding Congress about Iraq. Why doesn’t that unelected idiot shut up for a change? Who does he think is listening to him now? Yeah, the world does understand that the United States of Israel is scared, especially when European tourists have to wait two hours to go through customs in Atlanta. But those same Europeans ask me if I’m scared walking around my Italian city or in Rome or Florence or Milano or was I scared in Paris? Of course not. I’ve never been scared to be anywhere in the European Union. Oh, but I remember a time not so long ago when the United States of Israel was trying to make Europe believe it should be scared too. But Europe never bought the BS. Remember, Britain is in the UK — not in Europe!

By: salo

salo — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:53:41 +0000

but they knew all this in real time. This was not reported on at the time but it was all out there.

By: bob h

bob h — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:40:49 +0000

I thought the superb program was a devastating indictment of Rumsfeld and Rice, particularly.

In Japan, officials who had fucked up so badly would jump in front of the subway train or take a knife to their bowels. But Rice actually expects a promotion in the form of the McCain VP slot.

By: simon

simon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:31:58 +0000

How do they do this? People who buck Cheney are professionally disappeared

So, yeah, money is more important than liberty, and the destruction of the US, I can see your point.

They’re cowards, bottom line.

If they wanted to buck Cheney, they’d let themselves be professionally disappeared, and start a blog, fighting the good fight.

Cheney is temporary, as is his crew, only temporary, and failures, at that.

Look at all the military men who stood up to those cretins.

What, the corporate class all full of pu$$5&s, weak, no integrity?

Why, yes.

And they did a great job, too, didn’t they?

By: simon

simon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:25:22 +0000

It was made for people who didn’t understand what happened or came of age after recently. Not everyone reads blogs or journals, or even newspapers.

And it is the responsibility of our leaders, good moral ethical leaders, to insure the welfare of this nation.

When it’s David Axelrod, or dick stinking Cheney, we have a problem.

So, the idea is to make those leaders aware, the adman fantasies of “I can take money from Saddam’s former bagman and run for President, and it won’t matter” or “I can sell Obama like Perrier, and ii doesn’t matter (if I put another lazy idiot in the Presidency)” have to end.

Those idiots started a war they can’t handle.

By: rjj

rjj — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:21:42 +0000

But HOW do they do this? What can/will Cheney do to people who do not oblige him?

By: DCMediagirl

DCMediagirl — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:21:41 +0000

And a followup comment. As to your observation “Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation’s history”, I am reminded of the fable of the scorpion and the frog:

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”

“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.

“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back.

“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

Why did they do it? It’s in their nature.

By: rjj

rjj — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:20:15 +0000

… Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press …

How do they do this? People who buck Cheney are professionally disappeared. Glass half full: it is better than dropping them out of helicopters. Glass half empty: it is the slippery slope to having them dropped out of helicopters.