Riding a Misinformation Train to War

As a body politic, citizens of the United States are among the most misinformed in the world.

More Americans seek information from Fox TV, whose contempt for truth is self-evident,  than from any other source.  What's far worse, though, is that other sources, including some once held to be virtually unimpeachable, can no longer be trusted. American media, as an entity, have betrayed the mission for which their First Amendment shield was written.

Now, as a result, Americans are once again wallowing toward war in a pigsty of distortion, misunderstanding, ignorance and falsehood. Even as useful bilateral talks continue between the so-called P5+1and Iran, Americans are subject to new rounds of misinformation and misinterpretation. (P5+1 stands for the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- France, the United Kingdom, the United States, China and Russia-- plus Germany.) A new report from Media Matters  finds that the broadcast news networks — NBC Nightly News, ABC’s World News and CBS’s Evening News — “frequently” distort or exaggerate key information regarding Iran’s nuclear program. “Two egregious misrepresentations in particular repeatedly came up,” the report says, “suggesting that Iran will imminently obtain the bomb and suggesting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has major influence over the country’s nuclear program.” Neither statement is true.

How can so many be so wrong about Iran? Let us count but some of the ways:

The Basics:  David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote that in a possible compromise, " Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium to the 20 percent level and to halt work at an underground facility near Qom built for higher enrichment. Iran would export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium for final processing to 20 percent, for use in medical isotopes. . . ."

Dr. Cyrus Safdari, Michigan State University's Middle East expert: First, Iran does not have a "stockpile of highly enriched uranium". It has a stockpile of low-enriched uranium. Twenty per cent is the upper limit of what is considered to be low-enriched. Second, Iran would not be exporting this stockpile for "final processing to 20%." It would be doing so for processing into nuclear fuel rods (a technology which, Iran has now started to develop indigenously, thus vitiating a need to export the stuff and probably making the issue a better bargaining chip for the Iranians...all thanks to the sanctions on a medical reactor that posed no proliferation threat in the first place.) And the 20% uranium is not "used in medical isotopes" but is instead used to power the reactor that makes isotopes. And I'm at loss as to how Ignatius concluded that Qom is "built for higher enrichment" than 20%. It is not.

The Serious Stuff:  The common line in U.S. media is that while Iran asserts that its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes, our leadership suspects that it's really intended to produce weapons.  The United States in fact does not suspect this.  Its intelligence agencies have said publicly, twice, that there is no evidence that Iran is preparing to build weapons.  The International Atomic Energy Agency said it has no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran "now or ever."

Even as the first "constructive and useful" P5+1 talks with Iran were being held,the New York Times published a piece by James Risen that was littered with fallacy and misinterpretation.  Quoting "some analysts," Risen wrote that Ayatollah Khamenei's denial that Iran wanted nuclear arms "has to be seen as part of a Shiite historical concept called taqiyya, or religious dissembling. For centuries an oppressed minority within Islam, Shiites learned to conceal their sectarian identity to survive, and so there is a precedent for lying to protect the Shiite community." As usual in this kind of Times piece, we aren't give a clue as to who these "analysts" are. But Juan Cole, one of the top Mideast scholars in the United States, points out that historically, taqiyya was not a license to lie about anything, but permission to conceal one's religious identity in the face of life-threatening sectarian prejudice. He also notes that, in the twentieth century, the tide of Shiite legal opinion ran against taqiyya, and that Imam Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, demanded that taqiyya be abandoned. Cole concludes by saying that the taqiyya argument is "just some weird form of Islamophobia."

Risen's article seemed designed to question Khameni's religious edict, or fatwa, banning the possession of nuclear weapons as a sin against Islam, just as top U.N. officials were meeting "constructively" with the Iranians.  Risen rehashed old arguments by Iran's adversaries and added some of his own.

Once again on the word of unnamed "analysts," Risen wrote that Khamenei's no-nukes posture was contradicted "by remarks he had made last year 'that it was a mistake for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya to give up his nuclear weapons program.'"

In fact, Khamenei's remarks referred to "all  his (Qaddafi's) nuclear facilities," and not to his nuclear weapons (as Risen reported). Khamenei was making a point that other Iranian leaders frequently make: merely having a nuclear program without nuclear weapons can be a deterrent to attack. They cite the Japanese model as one for Iran to emulate.

Risen wrote that Khamenei's predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, reversed his initial opposition to nuclear weapons as inconsistent with Islam in 1984, and "secretly decided to restart the nuclear weapons program." He cited no source for that sweeping accusation.

Gareth Porter, historian and investigative journalist, says he has encountered skeptics who doubt that the Khamenei fatwa even exists.  "But," he writes, "even Mehdi Khalaji of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy acknowledged in an essay published last September that Khamenei's oral statements are considered fatwas and are binding on believers."

Condi Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" threat from Iraq turned out to be thin blue smoke. But even the so-called "responsible" American media snuffed it up as the real thing.

Dare we let it happen again?

Guilty! Guilty of, er, Thinking!

The thought police are running rampant on a new field -- major league baseball, a playpen for overpaid brats about which I usually don't give a damn.

Ozzie Guillen, manager of a team called the Marlins, has been suspended for five games, without pay, because he formed an opinion and expressed it. This transgression might have gone unpunished except for certain modifying conditions:

 1. The opinion he expressed was about Fidel Castro, the aging former leader of Cuba. Guillen told an interviewer he "loved" Castro and "admired" him for surviving so long with so many enemies.

 2. His employer's home base is Miami, a city rife with Cuban exiles whose hostility toward Castro is without limit. The team has just opened a new stadium situated in the part of Miami known as "little Havana." Christians in the colosseum of old Rome faced better odds than Mr. Guillen after he exercised his right of free speech.

 I have no interest in, and attach no importance to, his opinion of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez or Donald Duck. His expertise on anything more complicated than "take two and hit to right" is scant. He has never been celebrated for weighing his words before uttering them. But he has an absolute right under the Constitution to utter them.

 His importance at this moment is purely symbolic. He is a representative victim of a society that not only tolerates but cheers the evolution of its once democratic republic into a police state. Brutal police attacks on and arrests of peaceful Occupy protesters. Arrest and mistreatment of dissenters seeking to present their views at public forums, even the halls of Congress. Torture of Bradley Manning. Persecution of whistle blowers. Laws authorizing detention and even killing of American citizens without warrant or charge.

 President Bush conducted office with utter disdain for the Bill of Rights. His successor acts as if he wants to erase it entirely. At the risk of offending not only the thought police but also the incomplete analogy patrol, I submit the hardly original suggestion of chilling similarities between Bush-Obama America and early Hitler Germany. Increasingly militarized police. Warrantless arrest and detention without charge. Bloodthirsty mobs shrieking epithets against Islam, dissent and unpopular speech. Government sustained by a climate of fear.

 Poor Ozzie Guillen should be grateful for having been born in Venezuela rather than, say, Teheran.

Committing Suicide in Increments

The great American biologist, E. O. Wilson, observed that, in nature, if it's beautiful and easy to capture, it's probably lethal.  He cited a number of examples including that of a lad in Florida who noticed an exotically colored snake which did not resist when he picked it up and put it in his shirt pocket.  When he reached to remove the coral snake, it bit him and killed him.

There seems to be something of a corollary to Wilson's theory in the science of human nutrition.  It would go something like this: if it looks good and tastes good, it's probably bad for you.

Sad, indeed, for those of us who used to enjoy eating. Worse yet, they keep changing the rules on us.

For example: they told me the average life span of residents in a village somewhere in the High Himalaya was nearly 110 years because they ate a lot of yogurt.  I decided to eat yogurt but its taste was unappealingly sour.  Then someone gave me yogurt with fruit on the bottom.  Ah! I've been eating yogurt with fruit on the bottom for decades, proud that this healthy food, at least, had found a permanent place in my diet. Now I'm told: All yogurt contains lactose, which is a naturally occurring carbohydrate; generally in a single serving it equals about 12-15 grams of carbs, which is fine, but when you add the jammy fruit you can nearly double that amount. You end up with nearly 30g of carbs, half of which is the processed, quick-burning kind. Stick to the creamy (and protein-packed) Greek variety, I'm told,  and add some cut-up fresh fruit.  Wonderful.  I went out looking for  Greek yogurt and by the time I found it the once-fresh fruit was old and moldy.

Another healthy food I was told about was bagels.  "Stop eating those Danish pastries, that sugary breakfast cereal, those awful donuts," I was told.  "Eat healthy, low-fat bagels."  Done.  Now, howewver, "they" tell me:  even if you opt for whole wheat, many deli bagels can have 250-300 calories and more than 50 grams of carbs each. That's OK if you plan to run three or four miles after breakfast.Otherwise . . .

For decades, I loved chocolate malted milk shakes.  Such an energy boost.  Then they told me about all the unhealthy fat even one such treat put into my belly.  I was tortured by withdrawal symptoms. But I discovered "smoothies" and other "healthy" fruit juice drinks.  Fantastic! Almost as good as "malts" and good for me!  Oops! Come the nutrition police:  these can seem like a healthy drink to get on the go. But a 16-ounce fruit-heavy juice can have as many as 75 grams of carbohydrates and 64 grams of sugar (ditto for smoothies). If you can't start the day without juice, they command, stick to about 4 ounces, which has a reasonable 15-20 grams  of carbs.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

My brother-in-law Ted, a fit specimen and wonderful tennis player, ate lots of popcorn.  "Air and healthy grain," he would say.  When we watched movies on the TV, or went to theaters, Ted always supplied the popcorn.  Air and healthy grains.

Wrong again.

The nutrition police: Popcorn is already about 1,200 calories, almost all from carbohydrates (and a whopping 580 milligrams of sodium) for a large-sized bag. That's before you add the butter. Don't waste an entire day's worth carbs and calories while you mindlessly munch your way through "The Hunger Games".

Hunger Games? I'm starving to death trying to stay healthy.  A health-food-store cracker maybe? With a touch of organic cheddar cheese?  Please?

Nope.  Processed flour and high-fat cheese can still be called "organic."

I'm headed off to Starbucks to think about this over coffee.

Not so fast, Thomas. "Their fancy coffees can have as many calories as a meal, (sometimes upwards of 400), and their carb count can be on par with a pre-marathon pasta binge. Some have 60-80 grams of carbs per serving. Add in sugars, saturated fats in whipped cream and chocolate flavorings, and you've got dessert in a very large plastic cup."

Pour me another drink, Sam.  Play it.  Play "As Time Goes By."  By, God, I'm gonna go out happy.