News in Brief

“For globalism to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the mighty superpower that it is….The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” — “What the World Needs Now,” Thomas Friedman, New York Times, March 28, 1999

Was Rambouillet Another Tonkin Gulf?

New evidence has emerged confirming that the U.S. deliberately set out to thwart the Rambouillet peace talks in France in order to provide a “trigger” for NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, according to a recent Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) media advisory.

FAIR also reports that correspondents from major American news organizations reportedly knew about this plan to thwart the Kosovo peace talks, but chose not to inform their readers or viewers.

The June 14 issue of the Nation reports: An unimpeachable press source who regularly travels with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told this [writer] that, swearing reporters to deep-background confidentiality at the Rambouillet talks, a senior State Department official had bragged that the United States “deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept.” The Serbs needed, according to the official, a little bombing to see reason.

Written by George Kenney, a former State Department Yugoslavia desk officer, the article details how State Department officials intentionally crafted a peace plan that would provoke a rejection from Serb negotiators. Kenney compared this plan to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. According to FAIR, the revelation that American reporters knew about a U.S. strategy to create a pretext for NATO’s war on Yugoslavia – but did not report it – raises serious questions about the independence of mainstream news organizations.

Since the beginning of the NATO attack, the mainstream media has presented the war as a consequence of Yugoslavia’s rejection of a “reasonable” peace plan and news reports have been almost universal in blaming the failure of negotiations on Serbian intransigence. What has escaped the interest of the mainstream media was the fact that the Serbs were not opposed to an international presence and were willing to consider international peacekeepers led by either the United Nations (UN) or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This didn’t prevent the New York Times from reporting that Milosevic “has absolutely refused to entertain an outside force in Kosovo,” once again lending credence to claims the Times merely serves as enthusiastic cheerleaders and propagandists for “our” side.

The U.S. demanded the peace plan to be implemented by NATO troops under a NATO command which essentially amounted to a foreign occupation of Kosovo by hostile forces, an arrangement virtually no country would capitulate to. “We accept nothing less than a complete agreement, including a NATO-led force,” declared Madeleine Albright.

Rebellion at Pacifica

Instead of celebrating 50 years of “free speech radio,” “promoting pluralistic community expression” and “freedom of the press,” 1999 marks the year simmering internal problems have exploded into an open and contentious rebellion at Pacifica’s flagship station, KPFA. Oddly enough, Pacifica is now engulfed in a struggle over free speech.

On March 31, Executive Director Lynn Chadwick fired popular KPFA General Manager Nicole Sawaya, allegedly because “she wasn’t a good fit for the organization.”. Her firing fueled a staff revolt and on just one day’s notice, more than 150 staff and listeners staged a noisy demonstration to protest Sawaya’s dismissal. The staff also struck back with a week of on-air comments and news reports critical of the firing, in open violation of Pacifica’s notorious gag rule which prohibits mentioning station business on the air.

Pacifica’s most well-known voice, Larry Bensky, made a defiant speech at the rally and devoted his April 4th show to exposing Chadwick as a liar, dissecting Chadwick’s official press statement which claimed the firing of Sawaya was “not news.” Many media outlets thought otherwise too, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Anderson Valley Advertiser, the Nation, East Bay Express, the Fresno Bee, and CounterPunch.

Bensky also called on listeners to inundate Chadwick and Pacifica’s Board Chair Mary Frances Berry with phone calls, faxes, and e-mails. Apparently, this was too much for Chadwick. She fired Bensky on April 9th. A week later, on the 50th anniversary of Pacifica, a huge demonstration drew nearly 1,000 protestors.

On April 19th, CounterSpin, the nationally syndicated radio show produced by the media watchdog group, FAIR, was pulled by KPFK, the Los Angeles-based Pacifica network affiliate. The show was censored because it featured an interview with Larry Bensky who was invited to discuss his firing, the Sawaya dismissal, and the overlying issues of Pacifica accountability.

“As a show concerned with censorship, CounterSpin relies on the atmosphere of openness and critical thinking provided by non-commercial radio,” says CounterSpin producer and host Janine Jackson. “It would be a distressing commentary on the state of free speech at the Pacifica network if CounterSpin was pulled from their airwaves for doing just the kind of work we’ve always done, raising the kinds of questions we regularly raise about media.”

The same broadcast was halted in-progress by the Washington D.C.-based affiliate, WPFW. WPFW aired the first CounterSpin segment on media coverage of the use of depleted uranium weapons by NATO forces in the Balkans. The station halted the program in the middle of the Bensky interview. Listeners heard an Emergency Broadcast System announcement, followed by music, which ran for the duration of the half-hour CounterSpin program. Neither station has returned repeated calls by FAIR/CounterSpin asking for an explanation of their actions.

Barnes & Noble Calls Off Merger With Ingram

Barnes & Noble, Inc., the largest U.S. book retailer, called off its proposed merger with Ingram, the largest U.S. wholesaler, after reports of opposition from anti-trust regulators. In separate press releases, both companies said they worried that a prolonged review by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would hurt their businesses.

“The events of the last several days have made it clear that some (FTC) staff hold an outdated view of the marketplace, making an objective analysis of the transaction impossible,” said Ingram Book Group chairman John R. Ingram.

The deal has been under fire ever since the companies announced their merger plans. Critics said this would give Barnes & Noble an unfair advantage over independent bookstores and discourage Ingram from distributing books that don’t have mass commercial appeal.

The American Booksellers Association and the Authors Guild, both vehemently opposed to the merger, hailed the announcement.

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Updated: 5/6/2000