http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2008/112308a.html

Gates and the Urge to Surge

By Ray McGovern
November 23, 2008

It may become a biennial ritual. Every two years, if the commander-in-chief (or the commander-in-chief-elect) says he wants to throw more troops into an unwinnable war for no clear reason other than his political advantage, panderer-in-chief Robert Gates will shout “Outstanding!”

Never mind what the commanders in the field are saying — much less the troops who will die.

After meeting in Canada on Friday with counterparts from countries with troops in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Gates emphasized to reporters there is a shared interest in “surging as many forces as we can” into Afghanistan before the elections there in late September 2009.

At the concluding news conference, Gates again drove home the point, “It’s important that we have a surge of forces.”

Basking in the alleged success of the Iraq “surge,” Gates knows a winning word when he hears one – whether the facts are with him or not.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/090808a.html

Storm Troopers at the RNC

By Ray McGovern
September 8, 2008

Ten days ago, as the nation focused attention on the hurricane nearing the Mississippi delta, another storm was brewing far upstream in St. Paul, Minnesota — a storm far more dangerous, it turned out, but one by and large overlooked by the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).

When I flew into St. Paul on the evening of Aug. 30, I encountered a din in local media about “preemptive strikes” on those already congregating there to demonstrate against the Iraq war and injustice against the poor in our country.

St. Paul’s Pioneer Press expressed surprise that “despite preemptive police searches” and arrests, a group calling itself “the RNC Welcoming Committee” was still intent on “disrupting the convention.”

Looks like we're screwed. OR we've got to fight (grassroots' efforts to spread the truth on all issues) that much harder . . . And if it's true that McCain has pulled ahead of Obama in the polls, Americans are incredibly stupid, if by now, they don't realize they've been voting against their own self-interests, etc, etc. Unbelievable . . . The false war on terror psy-op continues to work, I guess. Thank you, Keith for trying to tell the truth. It was no liberal spin. --Betsy

http://www.truthout.org/article/msnbc-demotes-keith-olbermann

MONDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2008

MSNBC Demotes Keith Olbermann
Monday 08 September 2008

by: David Bauder, The Associated Press

New York - MSNBC said Sunday it is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as co-anchors of political night coverage with David Gregory, and will use the two newsmen as commentators.

Musharraf, Not Bush, Follows Nixon

By Ray McGovern
August 20, 2008

Most of the fawning corporate media (FCM) coverage of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation Monday was even more bereft of context than usual.

It was as if Musharraf looked out the window and said, “It’s a beautiful day. I think I’ll resign and go fishing.”

Thus the lead in Tuesday’s editorial in the New York Times, once known as the newspaper of record: “In the end, President Pervez Musharraf went, if not quietly, with remarkably little strife.”

Certain words seem to be automatically deleted from the computers of those writing for the Times. Atop the forbidden wordlist sits “impeachment.” And other FCM — the Washington Post, for example — generally follow that lead, still.

Very few newspapers carried the Associated Press item that put the real story up front; i.e., that Musharraf resigned “just days ahead of almost certain impeachment.” In other words, he pulled a Nixon.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20300.htm

Israel Planning a September/October Surprise?

By Ray McGovern

17/07/08 "ICH" -- -You say you expected more rhetoric than reality from Senators Obama and McCain yesterday in their speeches on Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, that’s certainly what you got.

What I find nonetheless amazing is how they, and the pundits, have taken such little notice of the dramatic change in the political landscape occasioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bombshell on July 7 — his insistence on a “timetable” for withdrawal of US troops before any accord is reached on their staying past the turn of the year.

Responding to a question at his press conference yesterday, President George W. Bush showed that he was vaguely aware that the timetable is, as Robert Dreyfuss says (in Truthout, July 7), a “big deal.” Bush even alluded haltingly to the possibility of extending the UN mandate still further.