The reminder that the media often reports the "news" as fed to it by those in power and ignores the relevant news - such as the reasons for the behaviors and policies - is validation of the continued existence of Project Censored, a program in its 27th year that collects under-reported stories from around the country and compiles a list of the top 10 "censored stories" as well as 15 runners-up. About 200 students and faculty from Sonoma State University reviewed the stories for Project Censored. The project's mission is "to stimulate responsible journalists to provide more mass-media coverage of those under-covered topics and to encourage the general public to demand mass-media coverage of those issues or to seek information from other sources."
Most of the stories on Project Censored's 2002-3 Top 10 relate to the U.S.'s war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq. While this emphasis indicates how the issue dominates the news, it also exposes how little news consumers really understand about how it happened and why. Taken together, these under-reported or "censored" stories paint a chilling picture of a long-range plan to dominate parts of the globe militarily and economically, while simultaneously silencing dissent, curbing civil liberties, and undermining workers' rights. Some of the information published as part of Project Censored is shocking, such as the fact that the U.S. removed 8,000 incriminating pages from Iraq's weapons report to the UN, or that Donald Rumsfeld might have a plan to deliberately provoke terrorists so we can react militarily. Project Censored would like to see other issues - such as the erosion of civil liberties - covered in a comprehensive, meaningful way by the mainstream media.
Expanded summaries of and Web resources for these stories can be found on Project Censored's Web site (http://www.projectcensored.org).
1. The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
Sources: The Sunday Herald (9/15/02), Harper's magazine (10/02), Mother Jones (3/03), Pilger.com (12/12/02)
Project Censored determined that the lack of public knowledge of the U.S. plan for global domination, exemplified by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), represents the media's biggest failure over the past year. The PNAC plan advocated attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan and other current foreign-policy objectives long before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Chillingly, one document published by the PNAC in 2000 describes the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" to persuade the American public to accept the acts of war and aggression the administration wants to implement. "But most people in the country are totally unaware that the PNAC exists," said Peter Phillips, a professor at Sonoma State and major domo of the Project Censored Project.
According to Project Censored authors, "In the 1970s, the United States and the Middle East were embroiled in a tug-of-war over oil. At the time, the prospect of seizing control of Arab oil fields by force was considered out of line. Still, the idea of Middle East dominance was attractive to a group of hard-line Washington insiders that included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol, and other operatives. During the Clinton years they were active in conservative think tanks like the PNAC. When Bush was elected they came roaring back into power."
The PNAC was formed in 1997 and is chaired by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and chief of staff for Dan Quayle when he was vice president. The organization, whose Web site can be found at (http://www.newamericancentury.org), published a report in 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf) that lays out a case for bolstering the United States' military budget to ensure continued dominance.
The group's statement of principles includes the following: "We need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles."
Like-minded people and groups were promoting an attack on Iraq five years before the most recent war. In a 1998 open letter to Clinton, Kristol was among a group of conservatives who wrote, "The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." According to ABC's Nightline, 10 of the 18 people who signed the letter were in the Bush administration in March 2003, including Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz.
In an update for the Project Censored Web site, Mother Jones writer Robert Dreyfuss notes, "There was very little examination in the media of the role of oil in American policy towards Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and what coverage did exist tended to ... debunk the idea that the war had anything to do with it."
2. Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberties
Sources: Global Outlook (Winter 2003), Rense.com (2-11-03 & Global Outlook, Volume 4), Center for Public Integrity (http://www,publicintegrity.org); corporate media partial coverage: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5/11/03), The Tampa Tribune (3/28/03), Baltimore Sun (2/21/03)
While the media did cover the USA PATRIOT Act and the so-called Patriot Act II, which was leaked to the press in February 2003, there wasn't sufficient analysis of the dangerous and precedent-setting components of either. This is especially true with respect to the shocking provision in Patriot II - the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 - that would allow U.S. citizens to be treated as enemy combatants and held without counsel, simply on suspicion of connections to terrorism.
Project Censored writes, "Under section 501 a U.S. citizen engaging in lawful activity can be picked off the streets or from home and taken to a secret military tribunal with no access to or notification of a lawyer, the press, or family." This would be considered justified if the agent "inferred from the conduct" suspicious intention.
The American Civil Liberties Union summarizes that legislation passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks:
· "Expands terrorism laws to include 'domestic terrorism,' which could subject political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy.
· "Expands the ability of the law enforcement to conduct secret searches, gives them wide powers of phone and Internet surveillance, and access to highly personal medical, financial, mental-health, and student records with minimal judicial oversight.
· "Allows FBI agents to investigate American citizens for criminal matters without probable cause of crime if they say it is for 'intelligence purposes.'
· "Permits non-citizens to be jailed based on mere suspicion and to be denied re-admission to the U.S. for engaging in free speech. Suspects convicted of no crime may be detained indefinitely in six-month increments without meaningful judicial review."
Fortunately Patriot I is under major duress in Congress as both parties are supporting significant revisions. Yet President Bush, realizing that he and Attorney General John Ashcroft are losing popular support, is threatening a veto and has aggressively gone on the offense in favor of Patriot II. Will the media probe the new legislation more thoroughly than the first round, which received inadequate analysis post-September 11?
3. U.S. Removes Pages from Iraq UN Report
Sources: The Humanist and ArtVoice (March/April 2003); first covered by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!
Story three is the under-reported fact that the Bush administration removed 8,000 of 11,800 pages from the report the Iraqi government submitted in November 2002 to the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The pages included details on how the U.S. had supplied Iraq with chemical and biological weapons and the building blocks for weapons of mass destruction. The pages reportedly implicate not only Reagan and Bush administration officials but also major corporations including Bechtel, Eastman Kodak, and Dupont, and the U.S. departments of Energy and Agriculture.
The report was removed from the UN Security Council, edited by the U.S. government, and then returned, according to reporter Michael Niman, author of one of the articles cited above. He contends that other members of the UN Security Council - including Britain, France, China, and Russia - looked the other way because they were implicated in the report as well. However, CD copies of the full report were made available by Iraq to journalists in Europe.
In comments to Project Censored, Niman noted that his article was based on secondary sources, mostly from the international press, because the topic received an almost complete blackout in the U.S. press. The story was originally covered by the Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung in December 2002.
4. Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
Source: CounterPunch (11/1/02)
Moscow Times columnist and CounterPunch contributor Chris Floyd developed this story off a small item in the L.A. Times in October 2002 about secret armies the Pentagon has been developing around the world.
Floyd wrote in his original article (http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html), "According to a classified document prepared for [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld by the Defense Science Board, the new organization - the 'Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group' (P2OG) [or 'Pee-Twos'] - will carry out secret missions designed to 'stimulate reactions' among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to 'counterattack' by U.S. forces. ... The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant justification for whatever level of intervention-conquest-raping that you might desire."
Floyd notes that while the story received considerable coverage in the international and alternative media, it has barely been mentioned in the mainstream U.S. press.
"At first glance, this decided lack of interest might seem a curious reaction, given the American media's insatiable - and profitable - obsession with terrorism," he told Project Censored. "But the media's equally intense abhorrence of moral ambiguity - especially when it involves possible American complicity in mayhem and murder - makes the silence easier to understand."
5. The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
Sources: Z magazine, (11/20/02), War Times (10/11 2002), The Progressive (11/03), The American Prospect (3/03)
The war on terrorism has also made it easier for employers and the government to suppress organized labor in the name of national security.
For example, in October 2002 Bush was able to force striking International Longshore & Warehouse Union members back to work in the San Francisco Bay area in the name of national safety. "The president also told United Airlines strikers that unless they agreed to further concessions, the administration would refuse the $1.8 billion that the airline needed to avoid bankruptcy," Project Censored writes. "After 9-11, Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing workers of the Pacific Maritime Association to return to work. ... The Bush administration used the specter of national security ... to stall passage of the homeland-security bill to exempt the 180,000 employees of the new department of most civil-service protections."
Project Censored concludes, "In his first two years in office, Bush has already blocked more strikes than any president in history."
Other examples include :
· "In December of 2002, the Labor Department issued new reporting and itemization regulations for unions - an administrative nightmare that will cost unions millions of dollars. ... The Bush budget increased spending for auditing, investigating, and punishing union violations."
· "The Bush administration has announced plans to accelerate the process of contracting out federal work to private companies, putting the jobs of nearly 850,000 federal employees at risk. This invites anti-union, low-wage contractors to compete for what are now, in most cases, decent-paying, union jobs with good benefits."
Chicago journalist Lee Sustar noted that labor coverage is usually woefully inadequate in the mainstream media, even though union membership, while shrinking, still makes up a national constituency 13 million strong.
6. Closing Access to Information Technology
Source: Dollars & Sense (9/02)
The potential closing of access to digital information is a development that could have a harmful effect on the powerful role online media plays in sidestepping media gatekeepers and keeping people better informed. "The FCC and Congress are currently overturning the public-interest rules that have encouraged the expansion of the Internet up until now," writes Arthur Stamoulis, whose story was published in Dollars & Sense.
The Internet currently provides a buffet of independent and international media sources to counter the mostly homogenous offerings of mainstream U.S. media, especially broadcast.
As the shift to broadband gains momentum, cable companies are trying hard to dominate the market, and eventually control access.
"A policy of open access currently makes it possible for people to choose between long-distance phone providers," Project Censored writes. "This open-access policy has also allowed one to choose between ... thousands of ... ISPs for dial-up Internet access. Phone companies would like to use their monopoly ownership of the phone wires to have total control over phone-based Internet services."
In 2002 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to allow cable networks to avoid common-carrier requirements. This was done by classifying high-speed cable Internet connections as an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service." Now the giant phone companies, who offer the competitive DSL services, want the same freedoms to control access to their lines. In the long run, instead of the thousands of small ISP services to choose from, the switch from dial-up to broadband means that users will have less and less choice over who provides their Internet access.
While the media did give significant coverage to the recent public rebellion against the FCC, which voted to further increase media concentration, there has been scant coverage of the potential monopolistic control of the Internet.
7. Treaty Busting By the United States
Sources: Connections (6/02), The Nation (4/02), Ashville Global Report (6/20-26/02), Global Outlook (Summer 2002)
"The U.S. is a signatory to nine multilateral treaties that it has either blatantly violated or gradually subverted," says Project Censored. These include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Just as the Bush administration is crowing about the possibility of Saddam Hussein manufacturing nuclear or chemical weapons, it is violating treaties meant to curb these threats, including the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Commission. For example, the U.S. is currently out of compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, according to the January 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review.
"The 20th Century was the bloodiest in human history, with a total of 174 million people killed in genocide and war," Project Censored writes. "The world increasingly needs an international legal framework from which the people of the world can be protected from heinous criminal acts, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity."
8. U.S./British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
Sources: The Sunday Herald (3/30/03), Hustler magazine (6/03), Children of War (3/03)
The eighth story on the list deals with a subject virtually ignored by the mainstream media for more than a decade - the U.S.'s use of depleted uranium in Iraq, in both the recent invasion and in the Gulf War. Depleted uranium (DU) was also used in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia.
The writers note that cancer rates hae skyrocketed in Iraq since the first Gulf War, most likely because of the massive contamination of the soil with DU from the explosive, armor-piercing munitions. U.S. soldiers are also victims of this contamination, suffering Gulf War syndrome and other ailments that many argue are linked to their exposure to DU.
Reese Erlich, a freelance journalist who reported on the topic for a syndicated radio broadcast and related Web-site report, said that the federal government has dealt with the issue of DU the way the tobacco industry deals with its liability problems. "They'll fog the issue so no one can say for sure what's happening," he said. "They'll commission studies so they can say, 'There are conflicting reports,' 'We need more information.'"
He noted that while the U.S. media is quiet about the issue, it is a hot topic in the international press. "When you get outside the U.S., the media is much more critical," he said. "They refer to it as a weapon of mass destruction. This will be a legacy the U.S. has left in Iraq. Long after the electricity is repaired and the oil wells are pumping, children will be getting cancer. The U.S. knew this would happen; it can't claim ignorance."
9. In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights and Civil Disruption Worse then Ever
Sources: The Nation (10/14/02), Left Turn (3-4/03), The Nation (4/29/02), Mother Jones (7-8/02); mainstream coverage: Toronto Star (3/2/03)
Though his work isn't cited here, Erlich also reported on the topic of the ninth story on the list, the continuing poverty, civil disruption, and repression of women in Afghanistan. While the country has virtually dropped off the radar screen in the U.S. press and public consciousness, it is suffering its worst decade of poverty ever. Warlords and tribal fiefdoms continue to rule the country, and women are as repressed as ever, contrary to the feel-good images of burqa-stripping that have been broadcast in the media here.
Project Censored writes: "In January 2002, the Tokyo conference pledged $4.5 billion for reconstruction, of which donor nations promised $1.8 billion this year. Nearly one year later, barely 30 percent of what was promised had been delivered. The U.S. government's own contribution has been half that of the European Union."
"Reporters by and large don't go to Afghanistan to report on what they see," said Erlich, who spent several weeks reporting in the country. "They go to the state department officials, so everything is filtered through these rose-colored glasses, saying things are getting better. But they're not."
10. Africa Faces New Threat of New Colonialism
Source: Left Turn (7-8/02), Briarpatch, Volume 32, Number 1, excerpted from The CCPA Monitor, (10/02), New Internationalist (1-2/03)
While Afghanistan is being essentially ignored, the 10th story on the list shows how African countries are getting plenty of attention from the U.S. - but not the kind of attention they need. These stories deal with the formation in June 2002 of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or NEPAD, by a group of leaders from the world's eight most powerful countries (the G8, composed of France, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, and Russia) who claim to be carrying out an anti-poverty campaign for the continent. But the group doesn't include the head of a single African nation, and critics charge that the plan is more about opening the continent to international investment and looting its resources than fighting poverty.
"NEPAD is akin to Plan Colombia in its attempt to employ Western development techniques to provide economic opportunities for international investment," says Project Censored. "The U.S. currently gets 15 percent of its total oil imports from the African continent. By 2015, that figure will be 25 percent."
The Rest of the Top 25
These are the 15 stories cited as runners-up to the top 10 most censored stories of the year. You can find more information about them at (http://www.projectcensored.org).
11. U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
12. Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
13. Corporate Personhood Challenged
14. Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
15. U.S. Military's War on the Earth
16. Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
17. Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
18. Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
19. U.S. Dollar Vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
20. Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
21. Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
22. Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
23. Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
24. Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
25. Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment
Most of the stories on Project Censored's 2002-3 Top 10 relate to the U.S.'s war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq. While this emphasis indicates how the issue dominates the news, it also exposes how little news consumers really understand about how it happened and why. Taken together, these under-reported or "censored" stories paint a chilling picture of a long-range plan to dominate parts of the globe militarily and economically, while simultaneously silencing dissent, curbing civil liberties, and undermining workers' rights. Some of the information published as part of Project Censored is shocking, such as the fact that the U.S. removed 8,000 incriminating pages from Iraq's weapons report to the UN, or that Donald Rumsfeld might have a plan to deliberately provoke terrorists so we can react militarily. Project Censored would like to see other issues - such as the erosion of civil liberties - covered in a comprehensive, meaningful way by the mainstream media.
Expanded summaries of and Web resources for these stories can be found on Project Censored's Web site (http://www.projectcensored.org).
1. The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
Sources: The Sunday Herald (9/15/02), Harper's magazine (10/02), Mother Jones (3/03), Pilger.com (12/12/02)
Project Censored determined that the lack of public knowledge of the U.S. plan for global domination, exemplified by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), represents the media's biggest failure over the past year. The PNAC plan advocated attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan and other current foreign-policy objectives long before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Chillingly, one document published by the PNAC in 2000 describes the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" to persuade the American public to accept the acts of war and aggression the administration wants to implement. "But most people in the country are totally unaware that the PNAC exists," said Peter Phillips, a professor at Sonoma State and major domo of the Project Censored Project.
According to Project Censored authors, "In the 1970s, the United States and the Middle East were embroiled in a tug-of-war over oil. At the time, the prospect of seizing control of Arab oil fields by force was considered out of line. Still, the idea of Middle East dominance was attractive to a group of hard-line Washington insiders that included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol, and other operatives. During the Clinton years they were active in conservative think tanks like the PNAC. When Bush was elected they came roaring back into power."
The PNAC was formed in 1997 and is chaired by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and chief of staff for Dan Quayle when he was vice president. The organization, whose Web site can be found at (http://www.newamericancentury.org), published a report in 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf) that lays out a case for bolstering the United States' military budget to ensure continued dominance.
The group's statement of principles includes the following: "We need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles."
Like-minded people and groups were promoting an attack on Iraq five years before the most recent war. In a 1998 open letter to Clinton, Kristol was among a group of conservatives who wrote, "The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." According to ABC's Nightline, 10 of the 18 people who signed the letter were in the Bush administration in March 2003, including Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz.
In an update for the Project Censored Web site, Mother Jones writer Robert Dreyfuss notes, "There was very little examination in the media of the role of oil in American policy towards Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and what coverage did exist tended to ... debunk the idea that the war had anything to do with it."
2. Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberties
Sources: Global Outlook (Winter 2003), Rense.com (2-11-03 & Global Outlook, Volume 4), Center for Public Integrity (http://www,publicintegrity.org); corporate media partial coverage: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5/11/03), The Tampa Tribune (3/28/03), Baltimore Sun (2/21/03)
While the media did cover the USA PATRIOT Act and the so-called Patriot Act II, which was leaked to the press in February 2003, there wasn't sufficient analysis of the dangerous and precedent-setting components of either. This is especially true with respect to the shocking provision in Patriot II - the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 - that would allow U.S. citizens to be treated as enemy combatants and held without counsel, simply on suspicion of connections to terrorism.
Project Censored writes, "Under section 501 a U.S. citizen engaging in lawful activity can be picked off the streets or from home and taken to a secret military tribunal with no access to or notification of a lawyer, the press, or family." This would be considered justified if the agent "inferred from the conduct" suspicious intention.
The American Civil Liberties Union summarizes that legislation passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks:
· "Expands terrorism laws to include 'domestic terrorism,' which could subject political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy.
· "Expands the ability of the law enforcement to conduct secret searches, gives them wide powers of phone and Internet surveillance, and access to highly personal medical, financial, mental-health, and student records with minimal judicial oversight.
· "Allows FBI agents to investigate American citizens for criminal matters without probable cause of crime if they say it is for 'intelligence purposes.'
· "Permits non-citizens to be jailed based on mere suspicion and to be denied re-admission to the U.S. for engaging in free speech. Suspects convicted of no crime may be detained indefinitely in six-month increments without meaningful judicial review."
Fortunately Patriot I is under major duress in Congress as both parties are supporting significant revisions. Yet President Bush, realizing that he and Attorney General John Ashcroft are losing popular support, is threatening a veto and has aggressively gone on the offense in favor of Patriot II. Will the media probe the new legislation more thoroughly than the first round, which received inadequate analysis post-September 11?
3. U.S. Removes Pages from Iraq UN Report
Sources: The Humanist and ArtVoice (March/April 2003); first covered by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!
Story three is the under-reported fact that the Bush administration removed 8,000 of 11,800 pages from the report the Iraqi government submitted in November 2002 to the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The pages included details on how the U.S. had supplied Iraq with chemical and biological weapons and the building blocks for weapons of mass destruction. The pages reportedly implicate not only Reagan and Bush administration officials but also major corporations including Bechtel, Eastman Kodak, and Dupont, and the U.S. departments of Energy and Agriculture.
The report was removed from the UN Security Council, edited by the U.S. government, and then returned, according to reporter Michael Niman, author of one of the articles cited above. He contends that other members of the UN Security Council - including Britain, France, China, and Russia - looked the other way because they were implicated in the report as well. However, CD copies of the full report were made available by Iraq to journalists in Europe.
In comments to Project Censored, Niman noted that his article was based on secondary sources, mostly from the international press, because the topic received an almost complete blackout in the U.S. press. The story was originally covered by the Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung in December 2002.
4. Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
Source: CounterPunch (11/1/02)
Moscow Times columnist and CounterPunch contributor Chris Floyd developed this story off a small item in the L.A. Times in October 2002 about secret armies the Pentagon has been developing around the world.
Floyd wrote in his original article (http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html), "According to a classified document prepared for [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld by the Defense Science Board, the new organization - the 'Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group' (P2OG) [or 'Pee-Twos'] - will carry out secret missions designed to 'stimulate reactions' among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to 'counterattack' by U.S. forces. ... The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant justification for whatever level of intervention-conquest-raping that you might desire."
Floyd notes that while the story received considerable coverage in the international and alternative media, it has barely been mentioned in the mainstream U.S. press.
"At first glance, this decided lack of interest might seem a curious reaction, given the American media's insatiable - and profitable - obsession with terrorism," he told Project Censored. "But the media's equally intense abhorrence of moral ambiguity - especially when it involves possible American complicity in mayhem and murder - makes the silence easier to understand."
5. The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
Sources: Z magazine, (11/20/02), War Times (10/11 2002), The Progressive (11/03), The American Prospect (3/03)
The war on terrorism has also made it easier for employers and the government to suppress organized labor in the name of national security.
For example, in October 2002 Bush was able to force striking International Longshore & Warehouse Union members back to work in the San Francisco Bay area in the name of national safety. "The president also told United Airlines strikers that unless they agreed to further concessions, the administration would refuse the $1.8 billion that the airline needed to avoid bankruptcy," Project Censored writes. "After 9-11, Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing workers of the Pacific Maritime Association to return to work. ... The Bush administration used the specter of national security ... to stall passage of the homeland-security bill to exempt the 180,000 employees of the new department of most civil-service protections."
Project Censored concludes, "In his first two years in office, Bush has already blocked more strikes than any president in history."
Other examples include :
· "In December of 2002, the Labor Department issued new reporting and itemization regulations for unions - an administrative nightmare that will cost unions millions of dollars. ... The Bush budget increased spending for auditing, investigating, and punishing union violations."
· "The Bush administration has announced plans to accelerate the process of contracting out federal work to private companies, putting the jobs of nearly 850,000 federal employees at risk. This invites anti-union, low-wage contractors to compete for what are now, in most cases, decent-paying, union jobs with good benefits."
Chicago journalist Lee Sustar noted that labor coverage is usually woefully inadequate in the mainstream media, even though union membership, while shrinking, still makes up a national constituency 13 million strong.
6. Closing Access to Information Technology
Source: Dollars & Sense (9/02)
The potential closing of access to digital information is a development that could have a harmful effect on the powerful role online media plays in sidestepping media gatekeepers and keeping people better informed. "The FCC and Congress are currently overturning the public-interest rules that have encouraged the expansion of the Internet up until now," writes Arthur Stamoulis, whose story was published in Dollars & Sense.
The Internet currently provides a buffet of independent and international media sources to counter the mostly homogenous offerings of mainstream U.S. media, especially broadcast.
As the shift to broadband gains momentum, cable companies are trying hard to dominate the market, and eventually control access.
"A policy of open access currently makes it possible for people to choose between long-distance phone providers," Project Censored writes. "This open-access policy has also allowed one to choose between ... thousands of ... ISPs for dial-up Internet access. Phone companies would like to use their monopoly ownership of the phone wires to have total control over phone-based Internet services."
In 2002 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to allow cable networks to avoid common-carrier requirements. This was done by classifying high-speed cable Internet connections as an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service." Now the giant phone companies, who offer the competitive DSL services, want the same freedoms to control access to their lines. In the long run, instead of the thousands of small ISP services to choose from, the switch from dial-up to broadband means that users will have less and less choice over who provides their Internet access.
While the media did give significant coverage to the recent public rebellion against the FCC, which voted to further increase media concentration, there has been scant coverage of the potential monopolistic control of the Internet.
7. Treaty Busting By the United States
Sources: Connections (6/02), The Nation (4/02), Ashville Global Report (6/20-26/02), Global Outlook (Summer 2002)
"The U.S. is a signatory to nine multilateral treaties that it has either blatantly violated or gradually subverted," says Project Censored. These include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Just as the Bush administration is crowing about the possibility of Saddam Hussein manufacturing nuclear or chemical weapons, it is violating treaties meant to curb these threats, including the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Commission. For example, the U.S. is currently out of compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, according to the January 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review.
"The 20th Century was the bloodiest in human history, with a total of 174 million people killed in genocide and war," Project Censored writes. "The world increasingly needs an international legal framework from which the people of the world can be protected from heinous criminal acts, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity."
8. U.S./British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
Sources: The Sunday Herald (3/30/03), Hustler magazine (6/03), Children of War (3/03)
The eighth story on the list deals with a subject virtually ignored by the mainstream media for more than a decade - the U.S.'s use of depleted uranium in Iraq, in both the recent invasion and in the Gulf War. Depleted uranium (DU) was also used in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia.
The writers note that cancer rates hae skyrocketed in Iraq since the first Gulf War, most likely because of the massive contamination of the soil with DU from the explosive, armor-piercing munitions. U.S. soldiers are also victims of this contamination, suffering Gulf War syndrome and other ailments that many argue are linked to their exposure to DU.
Reese Erlich, a freelance journalist who reported on the topic for a syndicated radio broadcast and related Web-site report, said that the federal government has dealt with the issue of DU the way the tobacco industry deals with its liability problems. "They'll fog the issue so no one can say for sure what's happening," he said. "They'll commission studies so they can say, 'There are conflicting reports,' 'We need more information.'"
He noted that while the U.S. media is quiet about the issue, it is a hot topic in the international press. "When you get outside the U.S., the media is much more critical," he said. "They refer to it as a weapon of mass destruction. This will be a legacy the U.S. has left in Iraq. Long after the electricity is repaired and the oil wells are pumping, children will be getting cancer. The U.S. knew this would happen; it can't claim ignorance."
9. In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights and Civil Disruption Worse then Ever
Sources: The Nation (10/14/02), Left Turn (3-4/03), The Nation (4/29/02), Mother Jones (7-8/02); mainstream coverage: Toronto Star (3/2/03)
Though his work isn't cited here, Erlich also reported on the topic of the ninth story on the list, the continuing poverty, civil disruption, and repression of women in Afghanistan. While the country has virtually dropped off the radar screen in the U.S. press and public consciousness, it is suffering its worst decade of poverty ever. Warlords and tribal fiefdoms continue to rule the country, and women are as repressed as ever, contrary to the feel-good images of burqa-stripping that have been broadcast in the media here.
Project Censored writes: "In January 2002, the Tokyo conference pledged $4.5 billion for reconstruction, of which donor nations promised $1.8 billion this year. Nearly one year later, barely 30 percent of what was promised had been delivered. The U.S. government's own contribution has been half that of the European Union."
"Reporters by and large don't go to Afghanistan to report on what they see," said Erlich, who spent several weeks reporting in the country. "They go to the state department officials, so everything is filtered through these rose-colored glasses, saying things are getting better. But they're not."
10. Africa Faces New Threat of New Colonialism
Source: Left Turn (7-8/02), Briarpatch, Volume 32, Number 1, excerpted from The CCPA Monitor, (10/02), New Internationalist (1-2/03)
While Afghanistan is being essentially ignored, the 10th story on the list shows how African countries are getting plenty of attention from the U.S. - but not the kind of attention they need. These stories deal with the formation in June 2002 of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or NEPAD, by a group of leaders from the world's eight most powerful countries (the G8, composed of France, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, and Russia) who claim to be carrying out an anti-poverty campaign for the continent. But the group doesn't include the head of a single African nation, and critics charge that the plan is more about opening the continent to international investment and looting its resources than fighting poverty.
"NEPAD is akin to Plan Colombia in its attempt to employ Western development techniques to provide economic opportunities for international investment," says Project Censored. "The U.S. currently gets 15 percent of its total oil imports from the African continent. By 2015, that figure will be 25 percent."
The Rest of the Top 25
These are the 15 stories cited as runners-up to the top 10 most censored stories of the year. You can find more information about them at (http://www.projectcensored.org).
11. U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
12. Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
13. Corporate Personhood Challenged
14. Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
15. U.S. Military's War on the Earth
16. Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
17. Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
18. Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
19. U.S. Dollar Vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
20. Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
21. Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
22. Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
23. Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
24. Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
25. Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment
