The Diane Rehm Show

While it is so important to closely examine the multiple deployments, stress, etc of the American soldier who allegedly massacred the 9 children and 8 adults in Afghanistan and many of us have been politely hammering on many MSM outlets for years begging them to focus on just these issues. I have noticed all week that MSM outlets have been setting the stage for an insanity plea for the American soldier. Joe Scarborough, Mika, Ed Shultz, etc will open this particular discussion with while this is "not an excuse" for this massacre they spend the next five minutes focused on repeat deployments etc. Never are they focused on the massacred children and adults in Afghanistan, their families etc. A real dehumanization process there.

What is also very sad is that the Diane Rehm show and other MSM outlets totally ignroed the Winter Soldier hearings some years back where soldiers who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq testified about crimes they had been involved with in those countries and horrific crimes they had witnessed. Our MSM seems to wait until there is a catastrophe to report about the very complicated problems with multiple deployments, stress, etc for our soldiers. And when will these outlets start having these soldiers on their programs instead of hearing from pundits etc who have not served in the military

This past Monday March 19th MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow aired a one hour program focused on Mexico choosing to be relieved of all weapons grade nuclear material. A great show in many ways. But within five minutes (4:07 in the first segment) of the program Rachel and her team put up a map of all countries known to have nuclear weapons. The US, UK, Russia, China, France (all signatories of the Non Proli…(tharr be more)feration Treaty) As well as Israel, Pakistan, India and North Koria (all non signatories of the NPT) What Rachel and her team chose to do next is inexcusable, irresponsible and very dangerous. They put Iran up on that map which says in the caption above the map “Countries with Nuclear Weapons” Rachel states “Let’s also add an outline around Iran because even though Iran says they neither have them or want them. There are international concerns that Iran is not only working on having nuclear weapons. But they may be close to that.” This is not only false but terribly irresponsible on Rachel Maddows part. While the international community does have concerns about what may be but has not been proven to be a plan for a nuclear weapons plan Iran is no where near having nuclear weapons. Rachel Maddow should be hammered (please contact her program) for being so irresponsible and repeating unsubstantiated claims about Iran and posting them on her map of “Countries with nuclear weapons” This is one more example of how our MSM has been repeating unsubstantiated claims about Iran starting very soon after the invasion of Iraq. First Segment March 19th ” Mexico relieved of all weapons useable nuclear material” At 4:07) Rachel Maddow Showwww.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/Peer into the depths

Hope folks go watch the Maddow show on March 19th especially that first segment

Do your guest think it would be appropriate and fact based for MSNBC's Rachel Maddow or anyone else with that kind of power to post Iran up on a world map that says "Nations with nuclear weapons"? We know that the US, UK, France, Russia, China (all signatories of the NPT), Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea (non signatories of the NPT) all have nuclear weapons but there is no verifiable proof that Iran even has a nuclear weapons plan. Yet MSNBC'S Rachel Maddow put Iran up on a map of nations that absolutely have nuclear weapons. I think this was terribly irresponsible, inaccurate and a very dangerous choice that Maddow and her team made

SEEING BEYOND THE AFGHANISTAN BUBBLE TO CHINA

Leaving Afghanistan to the Chinese is a questionable idea at best. Make no mistake, though no one mentions China, Chinese hegemony would be the inevitable result of American withdrawal.

It is a straight line from China's Xinjiang Province through Afghanistan to Iran. That fact in and of itself should raise more than a few hairs on all our heads.

Then there is the issue of water supply and the political leverage of water. China already controls the headwaters of the great rivers in Tibet that feed Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia, China, and of course Tibet itself. The rivers of Afghanistan, which represent the primary rivers of central asia, exist independently of the Tibetan region, and are not yet in China's control.

A major news story in just the past week or two is that China has made a deal with Afghanistan to operate an oil operation in Afghanistan. How is it that after all our efforts to free and rebuild Afghanistan, that it is China that will profit by such an oil contract with Afghanistan?

Yet our media is drunk with self-recriminations because our war effort is not immaculate. As a nation, we are overdue to sober up. Today's war costs in Asia are nothing, compared to what they will be, when China solidifies it's further expansion.

"hybeerian wrote:
Hey meangreen
I don't think Timothy McVeigh was Muslim, the Columbine,CO kids and all the copy cat school shooters were NOT Muslim, and the Denmark bomber/shooter (who dressed up as cop) I believe was a right-wing religious nut, NOT Muslim. My point is that TERRORISM is used by ALL types of people as well as Governments"

That was pre-9/11. Never heard that Timothy McVeigh was a right-wing religious nut. I heard he was agnostic. But then the left is alway quick to say " a right wing religious nut"
Most Terrorism over the last decade have orginated from Muslim cells.

"kathleen wrote:
I bring attention to both

Meangreen can you explain why our MSM can report numbers of killed in Syria and are unwilling to count report about the accumulative dead and injured in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years? Why? Can you explain?

And why our MSM covers the horrific kililngs of the Jewish children in France and seldom if ever do we hear the same outlets focused on Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces etc? Why? Please explain?"

Kathleen why not mention that Sunni and Shite have been killing each other for centuries. We hear everyday about some bombing killing innocent women and children by one sect or the other in Iraq.
Like I said to you before, why not look at all the killing within these Arab countries among their own people instead of always blaming Israel and the US.

Professor Juan Cole addresses the mistranslation at his website Informed Comment:
"Since Mr. Hitchens wants to splash my private mail all over the internet against my will, as though he were himself an agent of the Bush Administration’s electronic spying on the private conversations of Americans, I’m glad to share the message that encapsulates the results of our deliberations at Gulf2000.

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:34:18 -0400 From: “Cole, Juan”

The speech in Persian is here:

Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini’s determination and success in getting rid of the Shah’s government, which Khomeini had said “must go” (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.

The phrase he then used as I read it is “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).”

Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope– that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah’s government.