AIM Report: The Plot to Kill the President - December B
AIM Report | December 14, 2005
This was a big story . . . But apparently in the judgment of many news directors and editors, this wasn’t nearly as important as, say, what happened to Natalee Holloway in Aruba.
Forty-two years to the day after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, an American Muslim was convicted of joining the terrorist organization Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush. A lot of media attention was devoted to the former but not the latter. Could that be because the media loved Kennedy but hate Bush?
But is media hatred of Bush inspiring America's enemies, including those who plotted to kill the President? The Washington Post recently reported that pro-terrorist Sunni Muslims in Iraq said they "love Cindy Sheehan" because of her anti-Bush and anti-war protests. They said they watch the protests on satellite television.
There is also plenty of opportunity to get motivated to hate Bush by reading Frank Rich columns in the New York Times. Rich has joined those critics of the Bush Administration who see a sinister "neo-con" conspiracy behind the invasion of Iraq. We're not sure what Rich means by "neo-con," but he has to know that to many people, especially in the Arab and Muslim world, this is code for Jewish.
Some of Rich's animus may stem from the President's own religious persuasion, or that of some of his followers. On October 3, 2004, for example, Rich wrote a column referring to Bush's "self-deification" and "religious vanity." The thrust of the column was that Bush has a dangerous religious agenda for the world and that his Christian conservative supporters are even more frightening.
Rich's hatred of Bush has caused him to lose perspective. The real danger is coming from those who want to kill Christians and Jews and other "infidels." One of them plotted to kill the President. Frank Rich should examine the consequences of his own rhetoric. He is poisoning the public debate.
It would be foolish to think this kind of invective has no effect on people, here and abroad. Sadly, the fact that it appears in the New York Times means that it is taken more seriously.
Such attacks on the President are usually dismissed as the politics of personal destruction but when the U.S. is engaged in a global war on terror, we believe that the media should take into account the effect their vicious personal attacks on the President may be having on unstable individuals, not only Bush-hating leftists but America-hating Muslims.
In this case, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the potential assassin, was also convicted of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to al- Qaeda terrorists, conspiracy to commit air piracy and conspiracy to destroy aircraft. But the ramifications of this story got very little coverage in the media, and it was practically a one-day story at that.
The Plot
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, born to a Jordanian father and raised in the Northern Virginia suburbs near the nation's capital. He was valedictorian of his high school class, at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria. He moved to Saudi Arabia to study Islam and met his co-conspirators. That is when the topic of assassination of President Bush came up.
According to the indictment, Abu Ali provided material support to the conspiracy by purchasing a laptop computer, a cell phone, and books. Also, he received training from al Qaeda in the use of weapons and document forgery. The indictment said he wanted to become a planner of terrorist acts like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was the mastermind of 9/11, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker. Abu Ali was arrested in June of 2003, following terrorist attacks in Riyadh, which killed 34, including nine Americans.
According to his lawyers, Abu Ali was beaten and tortured over 40 days, and ordered to confess to certain crimes. Ultimately he did confess to planning acts of terror in the U.S. Originally, the plans were to bomb amusement parks and stadiums, and to assassinate a U.S. Senator or other public officials. But his al Qaeda co-conspirators suggested instead that they assassinate Bush. Abu Ali liked that idea. He gave a videotaped confession while in Saudi Arabia.
The unanimous decision by the jury to find Ali guilty on all counts was based largely on viewing the videotaped confession.
The Washington Times provided the most detailed account of this story. NBC was the first network to show footage of the taped confession. Abu Ali is shown saying in Arabic, with English transcription on the screen, that when asked to join the jihad against America, "I immediately accepted because of my hatred of the U.S. for what I felt was its support of Israel against the Palestinian people."
Regarding the proposal to assassinate Bush, he said, "I preferred this idea since it was easier to carry out, since the U.S. President often appears in public places." How would he do it? "Through a suicide bomber, or a team of at least three snipers."
Despite his claims during the trial that the Saudis beat him into confessing, the jurors didn't believe him. They saw him pretending to cock a rifle and laugh. NBC consultant Roger Cressey, said "it was striking how relaxed he looked, almost carefree. This didn't look like someone who had been tortured or was being pressured into giving this confession."
Media Asleep
This was a big story. It demonstrated in dramatic terms the reality of the global war on terror. In his case, of course, he came under the influence of radical Islam and Al Qaeda. But one cannot help but think about the effect that savage personal attacks on Bush are having on the terrorist movement as well, not only through Al-Jazeera but U.S. media outlets. We think there's no escaping the conclusion that the frenetic Bush-bashing is feeding the fires of the global jihad.
But apparently in the judgment of many news directors and editors, this wasn't nearly as important as, say, what happened to Natalee Holloway in Aruba.
Could it be that daily coverage of this three-week trial might have created some sympathy for President Bush and some additional awareness of the leadership role he has taken in this global war that threatens America's survival and his own?
PBS STILL SHOWING ITS BIAS
PBS's weekly public affairs show NOW is no longer hosted by the controversial Bill Moyers, but it still has a left-wing tilt. Doing his part for the anti-war movement, new host David Brancaccio featured a one-sided segment on the issue of military recruitment in high schools. The strong implication was that the military was preying on lower income and minority students, and deceiving them as to what awaited them if they joined the military.
It's true that the military recruits young people. We have an all-volunteer military. No one is compelled to go. But the military has a long history of enriching the lives of people who sign up, whether for the National Guard, the reserves, or active duty service. Sadly, in making that sacrifice, some don't come home alive. Some come home maimed.
Brancaccio stated that "In peacetime, parents might not think twice about army recruiters in a classroom. Traditionally, the military has been seen as a useful place to learn a skill or earn money for college. But today, even National Guard troops are being sent to Iraq in droves. Volunteering for the army can be a life and death decision. These recruiters are not dwelling on that part."
The show cut to a recruiter telling a group of students that "inside the base, you can find a lot of things. They even have a Subway, Burger King, Movie theater, swimming pool." The story gave the impression that kids are being duped or scammed into the military, with promises of cheeseburgers, movies on the big screen and a chance for a free college education.
Of course, most high school kids who make the decision to join a branch of the service have talked it over with parents or other adults they respect. It's not like choosing Sprint over AT&T. And certainly if they have signed up since 9/11, they know there is a war going on and they have a chance of facing the enemy.
Phony Claims
In order to make the case that the military is engaged in false advertising, NOW interviewed Jimmy Massey, a former Marine who was honorably discharged after 12 years of service, including several as a recruiter. "Recruiting duty was a nightmare," said Massey. He spoke of many young men, particularly in the poorer economic areas, who "look to the military for simple benefits."
"Recruiting began to grate on Massey's sense of fair play," said Brancaccio. "As for his superiors, he says they didn't care. It was all about meeting quotas."
Massey went on to describe "frauding" as a means to meet recruitment quotas. That is when the young men would normally be ineligible because of medical conditions or past drug use, but the recruiters overlook it and "coach them to lie on their military entrance forms." Massey said that 70 of the 75 people that he personally recruited had been the result of frauding.
No Credibility
One significant problem with this story is Massey himself, and his "sense of fair play." Weeks before this show aired, Massey had been reported to be a serial fabricator. For more than a year, Massey had become a staple of the anti-war left, teaming up with Cindy Sheehan, giving speeches and interviews, and was written up in Vanity Fair and USA Today, among dozens of other newspaper, magazine and broadcast reports. His story was that he was one of a number of Marines who had shot and killed numerous civilians in Iraq, including children. His book, "Kill, Kill, Kill" was published in France, in French. And he testified to some of these atrocities under oath in Canada at an asylum hearing for an American deserter.
His charges went largely unanswered, except for some statements by Marine spokesmen, until a reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Ron Harris, began looking into the charges. Harris had been embedded with Massey's unit, and he, along with some of the other reporters, investigated Massey's charges, and found many of his statements to be untrue. Harris's article on November 5 claimed that Massey, when confronted with statements that challenged his uncorroborated statements, was backing off of his accusations.
Harris wrote, "Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated, according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal."
The PBS NOW story gave no hint of any controversy. They did put up a graphic on the screen under Massey that said you could learn more about him by going to their website. And for those that did, they would have found Harris's article, and a transcript of a debate between Harris and Massey that took place on Democracy Now, Pacifica radio's far-left show hosted by Amy Goodman.
Phony Facts
In addition to the problems with Massey, the underlying assertion of the story was highly dubious. Namely, that the poor and uneducated are carrying an undue burden in the War in Iraq. About 95% of the casualties in the war have been high-school graduates, while only 85% of all Americans are. Blacks and Latinos have each totaled about 11 percent of the deaths in Iraq, about the same as their representation in the general population, but in the case of blacks, less than the 18.6 % of the current troop level they comprise; while 70% of the deaths are white males, though they make up only about 30% of the total U.S. population. This story is further evidence that former Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Ken Tomlinson was right in his effort to analyze and attempt to balance the programming on PBS. Tomlinson had wanted to balance Moyers with a conservative program. Brancaccio deserves some balance, too.
SHOULD THE U.S. BOMB AL-JAZEERA?
The Middle East Media Research Institute reports that Al-Jazeera TV staff members have demonstrated against President Bush, chanting, "Down with Fascist America" and "Bush is a criminal against humanity." This was in response to a report about Bush's alleged threat to bomb Al-Jazeera.
Alan Cowell of the New York Times said that "The Bush administration has frequently depicted Al-Jazeera's broadcasts as showing anti-American bias." The case against Al-Jazeera goes much deeper than that. It was banned in Iraq by the new Democratic government because it functions as a tool of enemy propaganda. It achieved notoriety for airing Osama bin Laden video statements attacking America.
In failing to expose Al-Jazeera as the terrorist mouthpiece it is, the Times mischaracterizes the nature of the criticism. This is done for the purpose of making Bush out to be a mad bomber. If the Times had any regard for the facts of the case, it would examine how the first managing director of Al-Jazeera was exposed as an agent of the Saddam Hussein regime, and how an Al-Jazeera correspondent in Afghanistan has been sentenced to seven years in prison in Spain for acting as an agent of Al Qaeda.
A Washington Post story by Kevin Sullivan and Walter Pincus reported, "Al-Jazeera has frequently aired recorded statements from al Qaeda figures. Bush administration officials have contended that through that type of broadcasting the network often serves as a conduit for terrorist propaganda."
That "type of broadcasting." What type is it? It is an outrage that any American journalist would regard Al-Jazeera as being a legitimate press organization.
The Terror Connection
Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, wrote a column back in 2003 noting that Al-Jazeera and another leading Arab channel, Al-Arabiya, "have made a fetish of broadcasting murderous attacks on Americans and their Iraqi and coalition allies, often accompanied by commentary or 'news analysis' that makes no effort to conceal that the speakers' sympathies lie with the perpetrators."
Gaffney, who had just visited Iraq to talk to officials there, said he had been informed that Al-Jazeera has been observed "arriving at the scene of a roadside bombing or other attack before it occurs. While the network has claimed that this was because it had been misinformed that the attack had already taken place and innocently wound up getting to the scene first, this strains credulity. At the very least, the attackers are waiting for the sympathetic Arab TV to show up before causing their carnage, knowing that it will feature prominently on subsequent broadcasts and be picked up by other networks around the world."
Gaffney said, "It seems unlikely to be any coincidence, either, that crowds are often on hand as well. Increasingly, some on hand for the attacks erupt—as if on command—when the cameras are on, offering fervid denunciations of the United States, President Bush, so-called Iraqi collaborators in the occupation of an Arab country and similar, highly charged visuals."
He added, "More to the point, elected Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders advised our delegation of retired senior military officers and civilian defense experts that there is evidence that Al-Jazeera is actually paying for such attacks. If confirmed, this would make the network and its associates enemy combatants and subject to appropriate responses."
The latest video to be aired by Al-Jazeera shows 4 kidnapped western hostages under the control of terrorists in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Israeli army has arrested a Palestinian journalist who works for Al-Jazeera. The Israelis said that he was arrested for security reasons "because he possessed information the army needs." That suggests he had knowledge of terrorist operations.
MEDIA CHARACTER ASSASSINATION
John Seigenthaler, founding editorial director of USA Today, wrote an article for the November 30 USA Today about how he had struggled to have Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, correct a false claim that he was suspected of being involved in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. AIM has been trying for months to get USA Today to apologize for running a story smearing President Bush based on the same phony National Guard documents used by CBS last year.
If Seigenthaler thinks it is frustrating dealing with Wikipedia, he should deal with USA Today. On the paper's editorial page, you see a tiny box headlined, "Commitment to accuracy," a picture of "Reader Editor" Brent Jones, and a phone number and email address. It generates an automated response and nothing is done about your complaint. We have actually taken our complaint to the annual meeting of Gannett, parent of USA today, but editor Ken Paulson still refuses to apologize or reprimand anybody. The paper not only used the same documents that aired on CBS, but USA Today got them from the same discredited source, Bill Burkett, who says he lied about where he got them.
The false Wikipedia entry said that Seigenthaler, a former assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, "was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby," but that "Nothing was ever proven."
He said his son John Seigenthaler of NBC News had called later to say he found the same scurrilous text on Reference.com and Answers.com. Seigenthaler said that "At my request, executives of the three websites now have removed the false content about me. But they don't know, and can't find out, who wrote the toxic sentences."
Seigenthaler calls this a highly personal story about character assassination. "It could be your story," he said. Well, Bush's character was assassinated by USA Today using phony documents. And the paper still refuses to apologize for it.
What You Can Do
Please send the enclosed cards or cards or letters of your own choosing to Frank Rich, Deborah Howell, and Rep. Murtha.
CLIFF'S NOTES
by Cliff Kincaid
DEAR FELLOW MEDIA WATCHDOG: December 6, 2005
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S NEW "NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR VICTORY in Iraq" has a very interesting reference to how the terrorists use the media against us. The document says that the enemy seeks to "Weaken the Coalition's resolve, and our resolve at home, through barbaric mass-casualty attacks, public slaughter of Iraqi civilians and hostages, infliction of casualties on Coalition forces, and use of the media to spread propaganda and intimidate adversaries." In his Naval Academy address, President Bush drew attention to how the terrorists in Iraq are using the media to accomplish their objectives. The terrorists, Bush said, "have nothing to offer the Iraqi people. All they have is the capacity and the willingness to kill the innocent and create chaos for the cameras." In this way, by using our own media against us, the terrorists wear down our ability to resist.
THE PRESIDENT'S REMARKS CAME ON A DAY WHEN THE WASHINGTON POST REPORTED ON how pro-terrorist Sunni Muslims in Iraq "love Cindy Sheehan" and get energized by watching anti-war protests from America on satellite television. That should have been the lead in the Post article, but it was buried inside the paper. When the Post published a Robin Wright article about the President's speech and war strategy document, this critical problem—how U.S. domestic forces are being used to help the enemy—was completely ignored. That's because the Post and other media are part of the movement to undermine "our resolve at home." This is the paper, under fire from the anti-war movement and its own staffers, that withdrew from sponsoring the Pentagon's 9/11 event in honor of not only those who died but our troops fighting the global war on terrorism. The Post thought the event was too connected to the war on Iraq.
OUR LEAD ARTICLE NOTES THE INFLUENCE OF NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST FRANK RICH, a Bush-hater who has written about a neo-con group in the Bush Administration being behind the war in Iraq. Rich may not mean neo-con to be Jewish. But if that is the case, his use of the term lacks significance. If neo-con is supposed to mean a desire to extend U.S.-style democracy around the world, then this is a philosophy that dates back to the time of America's founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson was a firm believer in an American "empire of liberty." He envisioned the young nation expanding into the entire continent of North America. He also declared that if America were able to "include the north [Canada] in our confederacy," then "we should have such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation: & I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire & self-government." Wouldn't it be nice to have Canada in the American orbit? So was Thomas Jefferson a neo-con? The founders clearly wanted to avoid involvement in European affairs because France and England were formidable powers. But they also saw the American experiment as something to be promoted and spread around the world. From that perspective, why is it self-evidently stupid or crazy to want to see the democratic experiment work in Iraq? It holds enormous promise and hope for the world. Rather than say outright that he believes the Iraqis are incapable of self-government, Frank Rich prefers to fault the administration for pursuing this noble cause. He is poisoning the public debate. Please send him one of the enclosed postcards about this.
REP. JOHN MURTHA MADE HEADLINES BY CALLING FOR AN IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM Iraq. He used the word "immediate." He said, "I believe we must begin discussions for an immediate re-deployment of U.S. forces from Iraq." He added that "the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy." He explained that redeployment meant getting out of Iraq immediately. Murtha's call for an immediate withdrawal was so radical that only three members of the House voted for the proposal. And Murtha himself wouldn't even vote for the resolution incorporating a demand for an immediate withdrawal. Nevertheless, the media reported Murtha's call. Now Deborah Howell, the ombudsman of the Post, is faulting her paper for reporting that he had called for an immediate withdrawal. She says in her December 4 column: "Several Post stories were written about [the] resolution he offered in the House on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Most of the stories used the word 'immediate.' I received a number of calls and e-mails—perhaps politically motivated—saying his statement did not call for immediate withdrawal." Howell investigated and found that he had used the word "immediate." But she also said he had used some qualifiers. Her conclusion: "While 'immediately' wasn't wrong, it wasn't quite right, either. It would have been better to say 'at the earliest practicable date' somewhere in the stories or to add the qualifiers."
THIS CRITICISM OF THE POST, BY ITS OWN OMBUDSMAN, IS NOT JUSTIFIED. HOW CAN A paper be criticized for using the word "immediate" when that word was used by Murtha himself? What she is saying is that the paper ought to have sanitized his proposal by adding the qualifiers that Murtha added to make his proposal seem more palatable. The correct response would be to note that Murtha tried to dilute the nature of his own proposal because it was too controversial to pass. In fact, Murtha lied about the specific nature of his proposal and then expected the media to obscure its nature when he came under strong attack for it. The Post ombudsman wanted the Post to play that game—a game that involves the lives of our soldiers and the Iraqis who depend on us. Please drop Ms. Howell and Rep. Murtha postcards about this matter.
MY FAVORITE SHOW ON CABLE NEWS HAS BEEN CANCELLED. MSNBC'S CONNECTED Coast-to-Coast political talk show with Monica Crowley and Ron Reagan has been disconnected. I was on the show several times, pleased with the fact that the hosts permitted guests enough time to complete their sentences. It provided a serious forum for the discussion of hard news. Crowley is a knowledgeable conservative who never gave any ground to her liberal co-host, the pleasant but usually smirking Ron Reagan. Rita Cosby's Live & Direct program seems to represent the new direction of MSNBC. Her show was supposed to feature a story about a male brothel. That certainly got my attention, if only because it seemed to represent another new low in programming.
OVER ON THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL, THE "WAR ON CHRISTMAS" HAS BEEN A MAJOR TOPIC for anchors John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly and it's a legitimate issue. But liberals on the lookout for conservative hypocrisy noted that Fox News Christmas merchandise was being sold on the channel's website as "Holiday" merchandise. O'Reilly had been highlighting those companies unwilling to highlight the Christ in Christmas. When this was revealed, labels for the merchandise were quickly changed. For example, an "O'Reilly Factor Holiday Ornament" was quickly transformed into an "O'Reilly Factor Christmas ornament" in the Fox News online store. I don't know which is worse—the ACLU's War on Christmas, as noted by Gibson and O'Reilly, or making a commercial killing from the birth of Christ, as demonstrated in the Fox News Shop. But I do know that we continue to enjoy freedom of religion and have a lot to be thankful for. Please pray for our nation at this time. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
For Accuracy in Media,
Cliff Kincaid
Editor
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