Newsmedianews | Editorial comment

The End of a Dream
There neither is nor can there be any excuse for the behavior and actions of Mnsr. Zidane on the worldwide football pitch during Sunday’s world cup final.
In front of a global audience this footballer of wordwide acclaim personally denounced in a few brief seconds his right to occupy a corner of the world wide stage. One can only – briefly – wonder why. It is speculated that Materazzi deliberately provoked the legendary French captain but that can be no excuse—all Zidane had to do was walk away.
This man will now go down as a conundrum — on the one hand a hero for a time —and on the other a complete buffoon, a disgrace to his team, to his country and to the game of football.

The Reality of Madness
“The Fourth Reich is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that Nazi leadership is good both for Germany and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.

The Project for the Fourth Reich intends, through issue briefs, research papers, advocacy journalism, conferences, and seminars, to explain what German world leadership entails. It will also strive to rally support for a vigorous and principled policy of Nazi international involvement and to stimulate useful public debate on foreign and defence policy and German’s role in the world.”
If you read the above text in a newspaper or heard it broadcast on public television, you could rightly be forgiven for believing that world war three had started or was very imminent. In fact the above text exists, not on any nazi-driven publication, but on the main web page of an organisation calling itself The Project for the New American Century. The only difference is in the names. Replace Fourth Reich with The Project for the New American Century, replace Germany with America and Nazi with American and you have the exact text on the home page of The Project for the New American Century.
This organisation has the ears and attention of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell and has done so for some considerable time. It has shaped policy in the Pentagon and in the White House.
It is time the world awoke to the danger.

The rise of DoubleSpeak and Newspeak
There can be little doubt that since the advent of 9/11, the use of doublespeak and newspeak has become proliferate and refined. George Orwell’s ingenious Ministry of Peace now dominates over the activity of the military forces who occupy foreign territories in the Middle East and elsewhere. Such is the power of their clonespeak that many who elected into office the governments that occupy the Ministries of Peace now believe the very newspeak that emanates from within its private rooms.
  A relevant example is British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s threat to introduce legislation to override a UK judge’s ruling that anti-terrorist control orders—house arrest and detentions without charge or trial—are in contention with European human rights laws. Control orders were introduced after Britain's highest court, the Law Lords, ruled in December 2004 that a previous practice of indefinite detention of foreign terror suspects also contravened the European convention.
  In parallel, UK authorities have sought pledges from several countries, including Lebanon, Libya and Jordan, that deported terrorism suspects will not be subjected to torture or other abuse—the European code prevents such deportations, including to countries where the death sentence may be imposed.
  UK home secretary John Reid said that where UK international human rights obligations prevent the UK from deporting people to places where there is a real risk of torture or of inhuman and degrading treatment, then ‘another way’ must be found ‘to protect the public if prosecution is not possible’. However, the methods that the government attempted to enforce breached the very same obligations.
  In the case of Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, who was courts martialed on 12 April 2006 and sentenced to eight months imprisonment for refusing to return to active duties in Iraq, courts martial Assistant Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss attempted to personally redefine the Nuremberg Principles, to which the UK is a founder signatory, and which makes clear under Principle IV that under international law a serving member of the military is solely responsible for his or her actions when obeying orders, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to them at the time.
  Kendall-Smith was released last week under conditions that remain in place until September 2006 and subject him to a 6.30pm curfew and restrict all contact with the media.

World Cup confusion
Italy's extremely dubious winning penalty against Australia in the World Cup and likewise Brazil’s most definitely offside goal against Ghana must call into question the method of how such matches are refereed.
  The assistant referee in the Brazil/Ghana match was in a clear position to verify the offside position of the Brazil players—a goal which was clearly and visibly offside when watched on the various televised coverage of the game.
  International rugby has introduced a third referee, who watches live filmed action of the matches and is in direct radio contact with the game referee, who can then call on the third referee to adjudicate in situations in which the game referee may have doubts. International level soccer deploys a fifth referee who has access to video replays of events but is prhibited from interfering in match decisions or even advising the match referee.
  Given that Brazil’s two winning goals against Australia in the same series were challenged as being offside, there must now clearly be a substantial case for the presence of a third, off-field referee to make definitive decisions on doubtful issues in international football. Given the importance of the football World Cup series, surely such tournaments merit precision refereeing.
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“War” & “Homeland Security”
“We’re at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous.”
  The comment was made by US Congressman and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King, who is urging the Bush administration to prosecute the New York Times over what he claims is action amounting to treason.
   The newspaper last week reported that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records. King said he would send a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez formally requesting a criminal investigation into the report.
  Although other newspapers have carried the reports, he said The NYT in particular should face criminal prosecution as it had also previously reported on “secret wiretapping operations”.
  Factions in the US may consider the country at war, but no formal declaration of war has ever been made by the US administration, which together with its enlisted allies launched an invasion program against firstly Afghanistan and then Iraq.
  Such action has never been a formal declaration of war but instead is military action sanctioned by Congress. This falls short of the country declaring itself at war.
  Any Congressman calling for such action should first ensure his comments carry full validity. The US is not formally at war against any foreign state. It is conducting military excursions on foreign soil.
  Therefore Congressman Peter King is erroneous in the extreme to accuse the NYT of action amounting to treason during a state of war.
Read NYT’ editor response to the call for criminal prosecution.

Below is the bulk of the comments by The New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, responding to many e-mails on the subject of the banking records revelations.

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.) Some comes from readers who have considered the story in question and wonder whether publishing such material is wise. And some comes from readers who are grateful for the information and think it is valuable to have a public debate about the lengths to which our government has gone in combating the threat of terror.

It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.

The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves national security, and especially national security in times of war. I've only participated in a few such cases, but they are among the most agonizing decisions I've faced as an editor.

The press and the government generally start out from opposite corners in such cases. The government would like us to publish only the official line, and some of our elected leaders tend to view anything else as harmful to the national interest. For example, some members of the Administration have argued over the past three years that when our reporters describe sectarian violence and insurgency in Iraq, we risk demoralizing the nation and giving comfort to the enemy.

Editors start from the premise that citizens can be entrusted with unpleasant and complicated news, and that the more they know the better they will be able to make their views known to their elected officials. Our default position — our job — is to publish information if we are convinced it is fair and accurate, and our biggest failures have generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough. After The Times played down its advance knowledge of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy reportedly said he wished we had published what we knew and perhaps prevented a fiasco.

Some of the reporting in The Times and elsewhere prior to the war in Iraq was criticized for not being skeptical enough of the Administration's claims about the Iraqi threat. The question we start with as journalists is not "why publish?" but "why would we withhold information of significance?" We have sometimes done so, holding stories or editing out details that could serve those hostile to the U.S. But we need a compelling reason to do so.

Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it's the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost in the heat of strong disagreements.

Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress. Most Americans seem to support extraordinary measures in defence against this extraordinary threat, but some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight. We believe The Times and others in the press have served the public interest by accurately reporting on these programs so that the public can have an informed view of them.

Our decision to publish the story of the Administration's penetration of the international banking system followed weeks of discussion between Administration officials and The Times, not only the reporters who wrote the story but senior editors, including me. We listened patiently and attentively. We discussed the matter extensively within the paper. We spoke to others — national security experts not serving in the Administration — for their counsel. It's worth mentioning that the reporters and editors responsible for this story live in two places — New York and the Washington area — that are tragically established targets for terrorist violence. The question of preventing terror is not abstract to us.

The Administration case for holding the story had two parts, roughly speaking: first that the program is good — that it is legal, that there are safeguards against abuse of privacy, and that it has been valuable in deterring and prosecuting terrorists. And, second, that exposing this program would put its usefulness at risk.

It's not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute financiers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far. A reasonable person, informed about this program, might well decide to applaud it. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider a program if they don't know about it.

We weighed most heavily the Administration's concern that describing this program would endanger it. The central argument we heard from officials at senior levels was that international bankers would stop cooperating, would resist, if this program saw the light of day. We don't know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling. First, the bankers provide this information under the authority of a subpoena, which imposes a legal obligation.

Second, if, as the Administration says, the program is legal, highly effective, and well protected against invasion of privacy, the bankers should have little trouble defending it. The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere. And while it is too early to tell, the initial signs are that our article is not generating a banker backlash against the program.

By the way, we heard similar arguments against publishing last year's reporting on the NSA eavesdropping program. We were told then that our article would mean the death of that program. We were told that telecommunications companies would -- if the public knew what they were doing -- withdraw their cooperation. To the best of my knowledge, that has not happened. While our coverage has led to much public debate and new congressional oversight, to the best of our knowledge the eavesdropping program continues to operate much as it did before. Members of Congress have proposed to amend the law to put the eavesdropping program on a firm legal footing. And the man who presided over it and defended it was handily confirmed for promotion as the head of the CIA.

A secondary argument against publishing the banking story was that publication would lead terrorists to change tactics. But that argument was made in a half-hearted way. It has been widely reported — indeed, trumpeted by the Treasury Department — that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash.

I can appreciate that other conscientious people could have gone through the process I've outlined above and come to a different conclusion. But nobody should think that we made this decision casually, with any animus toward the current Administration, or without fully weighing the issues.

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