"...on the CBS Evening News Jim Axelrod featured the far-left question from Hearst Newspapers columnist Helen Thomas at Tuesday morning's presidential press
conference. Thomas blamed Bush for deaths and charged that he employed subterfuge to launch a war: "Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of
thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war?" -
Media Research Center 3/22/06
There is an agenda that drives the Hearst mini-chain's [12 newspapers including the redoubtable Albany Times Union, The Laredo Morning Times and of course its
flagship the once queen of yellow journalism the San Francisco Chronicle] Thomas - aside from a perverse sense of self-importance.
Fact - Helen Thomas is an Islamist apologist, and that characterization has nothing to do with her Lebanese heritage.
In a 2004 speech presented at Virginia's Al-Hewar Center [available in its entirety below] Thomas revealed herself to be a moonbat of the highest order.
Al-Hewar itself is a controversial assembly point for Wahhabists of all stripes.
The International Institute of Islamic Thought [IIIT] is a radical Islamist organization with ties to al-Qaeda.
While the association between Al-Hewar and IIT should be cause for concern to anyone entertaining discourse with them, it should be even more daunting for an American journalist.
What is probably most troubling about Thomas' speech is its critique of American society which in some ways is more extreme than recognized leftist loons such as Alexander Cockburn. Thomas' jaunty welcome to "fellow terrorists" three days before the third anniversary of America's worst terror event is disgustingly inappropriate as is her comparison of terrorist to freedom fighters, something that could have easily come from the lips of al-Qaeda theorist Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
Good evening, Fellow Terrorists… or is it Evil-Doers? [laughs from the
audience]. I simply say so because I presume that most of you are against the
invasion and the occupation of Iraq. If I am not in the wrong, phew, of course.
But then, everyone is a terrorist who thinks our foreign policy is misguided and
ill-fated… That blanket covers our whole policy in the Middle East, not just
Iraq, but of course that is where we have lost our halo, our great respect, our
prestige in the world, our ideals of democracy. How did it happen? Easy. The
9/11 attack, which paved the way for the loss of so many of our liberties and
manipulation of truth beyond the pale. It amazes me how much people are willing
to be deceived and even to a point where thousands of lives are at stake. 9/11
segued into war and anyone who opposed our policies in both events feared being
called unpatriotic and un-American, and that’s what happened to the press. It
was a very sad spectacle for me to see the press, the media, my colleagues,
whatever you want to call it, roll over and play dead throughout this shameful
and tragic chapter in our history.
The questions that were not asked at the Pentagon and at
the White House were a discredit to our profession. I did not say at the State
Department because General Colin Powell was obviously not only out of the loop,
he was used as the Pied Piper to lead America into the war. His prestige, his
integrity, his reputation [were tarnished]. His tour de force presentation at
the United Nations in the run-up to the war was something to behold – much of
which he has had to repudiate since then. It must be very painful for somebody
of his stature to take back everything he said that he knows led us into war and
caused so much suffering. He did it slowly and his retreats, little by little
and without even an apology, wound up on the back pages of the very cooperative
newspapers. They should have been on the front page.
The fact that the press defaulted on a major role is
well documented now. Journalism took a bath. The New York Times, not checking
out the facts, were very happily provided with Chalabi’s version, and now it
admits that it was taken for a ride. The New York Times ran its mea culpa in two
editorials. The Washington Post, like President Bush, could not bring itself to
admit a colossal mistake. So in 3000 words, it recapped its performance, gave
itself a very low rating on grounds that the editors did not pay much attention
to a couple of reporters’ voices in the wilderness who tried to persuade their
editors that there was some doubt about the White House’s militant assertion
– weapons of mass destruction, ties to Al Qaeda, imminent threat. The
Administration was determined to take over Iraq in more than a regime change,
and the Post was more than accommodating in its editorials, with an assist from
a raft of neo-Conservative columnists, all of whom urged war, every day, never
minding the human price, or who would have to pay for it. It was going to be a
cake walk, according Kenneth Edelman, one of the advisors. The Iraqis were going
to kiss the ground upon which the Americans marched in. They were going to be a
pushover. Except that’s not the end of the story, as we all know now.
It turns out (can you imagine?), that even Middle Easterners – Arabs, will
fight for their own land. They are what we call the insurgents, or terrorists,
or even the enemy. They are the enemy in their own country, trying to defend
their own land.
During WWII, those who resisted the Nazi occupation were
heralded for their resistance against human tyranny. But when Arabs do that, do
they get that kind of salute? The Palestinians who resist every day the
tyrannical occupation are in the same boat.
As for the press, it is incredible that we saw the tragedy
of the babies in Chechnya thanks to Agence France press and Reuters
photographers who were allowed in. But when we dropped 70,000 tons of bombs on
Iraq in the first few days of March 2003, we saw no photographs. Too gruesome,
said the networks. No, we couldn’t show such things. Embedded reporters only
saw a slice of the war – the slice that they wanted us to see. And the
networks refused to show anything that was really bad. It was a lovely invasion.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State went to Qatar to tell
them to take Al-Jazeera off the air. And Condoleeza Rice put pressure on the
networks here. Somehow, someone forgot the First Amendment and the role that the
press is supposed to play in letting the chips fall where they may, and that
only the truth should prevail. As for Dover, where they bring in the coffins of
fallen soldiers, reporters and cameramen were barred from showing or reporting
on any of the coffins that were brought in, any of the honor guard ceremonies.
At the Pentagon, they would tell you the total number of American deaths and
wounded any day that we called. But if you asked about the number of wounded and
dead Iraqis, you would get this answer: “We don’t track that. We don’t
count them." Meaning they don’t count. So one day I called back the Pentagon
and said, you tell us that you are liberating the Iraqis. What do you mean they
don’t count? I would like a rationale. They called back a few hours later and
said, “Look, our purpose is not to kill, but if there is resistance, then the
numbers don’t count."
But somewhere, somehow, the truth about the treatment of
Prisoners of War was revealed, thanks to a soldier from a little town in
Pennsylvania, who was very disturbed by what he saw. He called his mother one
night, but didn’t tell her what was bothering him, but she knew he was very
troubled. He kept asking her personal ethics questions, and she told him that he
should do the moral thing and that the truth would make him free. And he did
exactly that. He put a cassette of the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison on the
bunk of an Army investigator. These were the shocking photos that the rest of
the world finally saw. He has to be protected now because many of his buddies
think he ratted on them.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed his shock upon
seeing the photographs. That report of General Taguba had been gathering dust on
his desk for months before the story broke, from January to April, until the
world learned of the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man.
This is one of the most secretive administrations I have
ever covered, and there is no question that the Administration puts its own spin
on all stories, and the press is supine, and rolls over. The Presidential news
conference is the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned.
If he is not questioned, he can rule like a dictator, a king, and there is no
accountability. We don’t have the British system where the Prime Minister goes
before the House of Commons and is questioned. So the press in America is the
front line. It is the transmission belt. And we are the only ones this
Administration is really trying to avoid. The president may answer a few
questions for picture taking, but it is never really a complete press
conference, and there is no follow up. He’ll say I’ll take 2 questions and
then dismiss everyone. The news at the White House is managed, controlled, and
manipulated, and that is not unusual. Every Administration I have ever covered
has tried to manage the news. But Bush has only had 13 formal news conferences
since he took office, which is shockingly low, and his last one was June 10.
Well a lot has happened since June 10.
I’ve been blacklisted from the White House, and of course
I have a lot of questions. I was accused after the first presidential news
conference of blindsiding the president because I asked him why he did not
respect the wall of separation of church of state by setting up a religious
office in the White House. Well this took him totally by surprise. There’s a
video where he looks like he’s been shot! Everybody had been asking him about
tax cuts, and I came out of the blue with my question!
Since he came to office White House, this president has
torn up practically every treaty we have ever made in terms of collective
security. It is unbelievable. These treaties were not written in a day. Some
took 10 years, dotting every “i", crossing every “t", and he tears them
up. He has no respect for allies and friends. He is a conservative, but I have
yet to find any compassion.
I believe that if he is
reelected, we have doomed ourselves to perpetual war in the 21st
century. We will have a repetition of the 20th Century. Two World
Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and every thing that happened at the turn of
the century before. Of course he will re-institute the draft. He has to, they
are scraping the bottom of the barrel now for ready reserves. He will dismantle
the Social Security system little by little with privatizing. He will continue
to erode labor rights. He has already practically wiped out overtime. If he
makes you a vice president or a supervisor, you won’t get any overtime. Or
he’ll give you comp time, even if you don’t want comp time – even if you
want to support and feed your kids… He will continue to move jobs to the Third
World where multi-millionaires can fatten their pocketbooks from sweatshops and
child labor. And, of course, the richest people in the country will continue to
get the biggest tax cuts.
So through Bush policies, we
have lost most of our friends and allies in the world. At the least, we have
lost their respect. And domestically, the poor, the sick, and the maimed will be
forgotten. I believe, like Abraham Lincoln, that government should do for people
what people cannot do for themselves. I will conclude my rant by quoting John F.
Kennedy after the Cuban Crisis. In 1962 he went to American University and made
a speech where he said “America would never start a war. We want a world where
the weak are secure and the strong are just."
The other quote that I like so
much is “The only way for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing."
Finally, from early in our
Colonial era, was the observation by Alexis De Tocqueville, who said “America
is great because it is good. When it ceases to be good, it will no longer be
great."
We can change all that if we
give peace a chance.
March 22, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Though CBS still believes Helen Thomas is relevant enough to lead the evening edition of its March 21st broadcast: