Friday News Roundup - Hour 2
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-08/friday-news-roundup-hour-2
Diane and her guests will discuss the week's top international stories. Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is folding its 168-year-old British tabloid, News of the World. The surprise announcement comes as London police arrested former editors of the paper amid a phone hacking scandal. Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation into accusations by a French women that former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her eight years ago. Venezuala's president Hugo Chavez makes an unexpected return to office after news that he is battling cancer. And new revelations that al Qaida may be preparing to surgically conceal body bombs.
Guests
James Kitfield
senior correspondent, National Journal.
Kim Ghattas
State Department correspondent for the BBC.
David Sanger
chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times.
Comments
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Politics aside, can Congress place themselves in near retirement and retirement Americans' shoes and agree to save the current agreement these folks paid into the Social Security system?
Is the U.K. phone hacking scandal an overall practice in the Rupert Murdoch media empire? Will there be investigations in the U.S.?
Joyce in Arizona wrote:
"Is the U.K. phone hacking scandal an overall practice in the Rupert Murdoch media empire? Will there be investigations in the U.S.?"
Not before there is an investigation into David Brock's Media Matters tax exempt status. Apparently, this organization exists as a tax right off for George Soros.
Good Morning,
The reports of body-bombers is an additional shock and scare tactic hyped up by the media to justify expensive wars and the killing of so many innocent civilians half way around the world. It makes you wonder who is a threat to who. The chemicals found in these "body" bombs, PETN and TATP, are the same as the 2001 Shoe Bomber and 2009 Underwear Bomber and are extremely difficult to detect due to their relative stability and organic composition. Even if we stripped searched airplane passengers these chemicals could go undetected. The fact that they are learning how to surgically implant them is not a new threat, but a sign of how outraged and infuriated certain groups are at the U.S., and how disastrously unsuccessful the "War on Terror" has been for 10 years. Wasn't a goal of this war to eliminate terrorist?
Why does no one talk about the practical aspects of this news, let alone the practical solutions? The answer is there is too much at stake for the powerful to let the public speak honestly about these threats. Reeling in our CIA interference and bringing the troops home would vastly secure our borders and reduce the threat of attacks from suicidally outraged individuals. Americans who do not give second thought to the notion that Extreme Islamists want to attack us because we're free and prosperous is dangerously blind. That explanation doesn't even make logical sense.
Thanks for the public dialogue, Diane.
-Michael Woon
how sad and ironic that the sneaky shameful hacking into the private email accounts of the tragically dead would occur in the country in which its favorite celebrity was killed in a high speed car chase with tabloid journalists.
Is it too much to hope this may be the end of Murdoch's "evil empire"?
cicero on July 8, 2011 @ 11:09 am wrote (concerning investigating Murdoch’s media empire): “Not before there is an investigation into David Brock's Media Matters tax exempt status.”
Why not do both? And while we’re at it, how about an investigation into the tax exempt status of all those churches and religious organizations that are acting as “fronts” for the GOP, hold campaign rallies in their sanctuaries, and generally violate the law with their partisan politics?
For that matter, how about an investigation into how cicero can be depended on to parrot Faux News talking points? (Okay, I’m joking about this one.)
Michael Woon on July 8, 2011 @ 11:51 am wrote: “The reports of body-bombers is an additional shock and scare tactic. . . .”
PART ONE
Really? You have proof that there is no real threat, and can absolutely guarantee it’s nothing to be concerned about?
I note that while you pooh-pooh the threat, at the same time you assert “The fact that they are learning how to surgically implant them is not a new threat, but a sign of how outraged and infuriated certain groups are. . . .” Well, which is it? A fake threat or a real one? Make up your mind.
Funny, how you can excoriate “the killing of so many innocent civilians half way around the world”, but you appear to ignore who’s doing a lot of that killing - the same terrorists who killed thousands of innocent civilians on 9/11.
Your argument about strip searches, etc., is absurd. Obviously if the bombs are implanted such a search won’t find them. (An x-ray probably would. How many non-terrorists do you know walking around with bombs implanted in their bodies?)
Of course, you ignore the main point being raised: the inanity of Ron Paul’s fixation on returning airport security to the airlines. After all, when the private sector was in charge it did such a great job.
TO BE CONTINUED
PART TWO
As for the “War on Terror”, please don’t think an inane slogan has anything to do with matters of substance. I agree that phrase was idiotic. You can no more have a war on “terror” than you can have a war on “murder”, or “arson”, or any other criminal or violent act. It was a euphemism for the real fight we are having - with Al-Queda. So far, that “war” is going fairly well (just ask Bin Laden). And even though the battle continues, may I remind you it took 6 years to destroy Nazi Germany, and that was far easier to locate and attack. This is a “war” with no recognized discrete “battlefields”, whose combatants “hide in plain sight”. Precisely why the analogy to an actual war doesn’t work.
Concerning outrage felt against the U.S. by terrorists, are you suggesting that if we can’t eliminate it we shouldn’t fight groups that express their outrage with violence? How about the home-grown variety? Should the U.S. cease investigating violent neo-Nazi militia groups, or the likes of Timothy McVeigh, just because they get further “outraged” by the attempts to stop them?
Replying to the mindless ideology of Bush the Second and Cheney with mindless ideology of your own may be satisfying, but it’s no substitute for a rational policy!
As for Pakistan, I've often thought our government should, privately, warn them that their conduct will produce their worst paranoid fears: drive us into the arms of India (maybe with a side deal with China). After all, both countries have as much reason to oppose Pakistan's "coddling" of Islamic terrorists. Both have suffered for it. Perhaps the threat that a casual word from us (privately, of course) that we wouldn't necessarily object to a China - India alliance against Pakistan might help Pakistan "see the light".
Or, we can just declare that if Iran uses those atomic weapons Pakistan is so proud of giving it, we'll blow Pakistan's capital off the face of the Earth!
Response to Etaoin Shrdlu:
Ok, let's assume there is a real threat of a terrorist from the Middle East blowing up a commercial plane and the risk is so great it justifies foreign invasion and the loss of soldier's lives, and possibly foreign civilian's lives.
(Every number here is my own, conservative approximation from the latest reports. I challenge you to prove I'm exaggerating or neglecting something.)
Since we're talking about "Terror" we'll just focus on the war in Afghanistan. It's disgusting to look at the results of the Iraq War, and I challenge you to do your own basic calculations on the Iraq War.
In Afghanistan from 2001 to 2010 the Taliban has been attacked and 38,000 have been killed or captured, and only 1,623 US troops were killed. Looks pretty good, we can kill 23 terrorists for each US soldier killed.
But, the US is not getting the brunt of the conflict, and I'm not sure why. 9,216 Afghan force soldiers were also killed, as well as 9,462 civilians (more like 14,000-34,000). That is, we can kill 2 terrorist for each Afghan soldier or citizen killed. We value Afghan citizens and defenders as half a terrorist.
Clearly there is an unequal value of human life here, and we don't care and we're not changing. Are the Afghans happy we're there? Your guess? How would you feel if foreigners came to your country and killed thousands of your people who were innocent or helping defend (more like tens of thousands)?
Is it really the same as 9/11? I hate to minimize such a tragic event, but keep in mind the terrorists did not expect the towers to fall, and there were only 312 victims on the planes (minus hijackers), and with the towers falling a total of 2,977 victims died. Compared to 9,462 Afghan civilians? When do we think about others, or at least our future, and change our strategy?
Etoain:
Why not do both? And while we’re at it, how about an investigation into the tax exempt status of all those churches and religious organizations that are acting as “fronts” for the GOP, hold campaign rallies in their sanctuaries, and generally violate the law with their partisan politics?"
Can we include the "Black Churches" that support Democratics?
Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
"Why not do both? And while we’re at it, how about an investigation into the tax exempt status of all those churches and religious organizations that are acting as “fronts” for the GOP, hold campaign rallies in their sanctuaries, and generally violate the law with their partisan politics?"
We can't do both because Soros is a huge NPR benefactor. Why would NPR want to investigate anything that reveals Soros and Brock to be pernicious vermin?
Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
"For that matter, how about an investigation into how cicero can be depended on to parrot Faux News talking points? (Okay, I’m joking about this one.)'
Let's see. By your own admission, FOX News is the only media outlet reporting the David Brock story. While FOX News is also covering the Murdock story, the lame stream media is only doing the Murdock story. Did you inform your liberal friends about the Brock story or do you think they need not be bothered with Brock's perfidy since they agree with his tactics?